Magnificent Bastard / Live-Action TV: A to G

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# - C

• 1-800-Missing:
  • Assistant Director John Pollock is the leader of the Missing Person's Task Force and, despite his arrogant demeanor, proves to be far more capable and intelligent than he lets on. Coming into his own when he releases a dangerous criminal so she'll lead them to a dangerous weapon, Pollock uses his knowledge and connections to benefit any case he can, using varying strategies like going on a date with a suspect and giving her his PDA to track her; blackmailing an ambassador through the knowledge of his affairs; having a fleeing criminal kidnapped by a Brazilian General, even telling the General to do whatever he wants to him; and often working his own angles on cases while the rest of the team works theirs. Whether it's kidnappers, murderers, or even other departments of the government, Pollock knows when to fight and when to back off, always ensuring that the FBI comes out on top of any other agency or person that tries to take him down.
  • "Delusional": Karen Moore is the personification of Brianna Norton's mental illness who corrupted her into a ruthless Serial Killer. After Brianna was Forced to Watch a businessman murder her sister, Karen convinced her that all businessmen were out to get her, managing to make Brianna act normal enough to be released from her mental institution before they began killing. When Jess gets visions of Brianna, Karen begins corrupting her as well, convincing her that everyone she knows is out to get her with subtle yet accurate observations, turning her into a paranoid mess within a day and leaving her unsure of just what is real. Although she dies with Brianna, Karen manages to cause more damage to Jess than any other killer despite not even being real.
  • "Mr. Nobody": The imposter is a mysterious hitman who works to ensure he won't go down for his crimes. Hired to assassinate Seth Peters, the imposter kidnaps Martin Hallenbeck, a nobody, and begins a weeks-long effort to frame him for Peters' murder, planting incriminating evidence on forums in Martin's name and legally buying a rifle in Martin's name. When seen by Rebecca Flynn, he kills her to cover his tracks before hiding her body, staying ahead of the FBI even when the murder sets them on his trail. Later on planting evidence pointing towards a false target to buy himself some time, the FBI play along until the last moment, leading to the imposter almost succeeding in his plan.
  • "Truth or Dare" two-parter: Jared Hart is a suave Con Man who proves dangerous to both the FBI and the Bianchi crime family. Upon his wife being kidnapped by the family, Jared makes it even by giving them the location of a witness currently in protection. When this entices them for more, Jared pretends to be an FBI agent, putting them on his wife's trail as well as giving himself access to the Witness Protection database. Along the way, he not only believes Jess's visions but utilizes them, beating everyone to a witness who he manages to save before later using the team's skills of analysis to secretly tip Nicole off to a meeting. Though he's ultimately arrested, Jared's actions ensure his wife's safety and he accepts defeat gracefully, confidently stating he'll be back with his wife soon enough.
  • "John Doe": The kidnapper is a surprisingly competent adversary who keeps up with the FBI despite his low class of crime. After hearing Derek Conway complain about his rich employers, the kidnapper comes up with a plan to kidnap Victoria Farlow for ransom, using Derek to get the codes to shut off the house's alarm. Meticulously covering all of his tracks, including taking the security camera footage with him, the kidnapper then arranges a secure ransom drop, only to have his men successfully ambush the FBI and get away with the cash. Later managing to track down Conway and torturing him for Victoria's whereabouts, the kidnapper then shoots him in the head when he doesn't get the information and leaves with his money. Only tracked down due to a series of small details, the kidnapper then remains calm in his interrogation, simply telling Nicole everything before quietly hanging his head.
• Alice (1976)'s "Jolene Lets the Cat out of the Bag": Roger Harris is the neighbor and new boyfriend of Jolene, apparently protecting her from a local cat burglar robbing apartments. In truth, Roger himself is the criminal, having a years-long career of crime in which he has made fortunes for himself through "expertise, intelligence, and a modicum of good taste." Roger takes Jolene and her friends at gunpoint to rob them all, being immensely affable and accommodating even while threatening them, and continues to rob various strangers who stumble into the apartment, expressing his pride in being a successful breed of criminal and not a common crook. Promising Jolene that he genuinely cared for her and even offering her a chance to run away with him, Roger nearly escapes scot-free, intending to scale down the side of the building just to delight the excitable Vera.
• Alice in Borderland:
  • Shuntaro Chishiya was once a caring, good-hearted doctor who grew colder and more detached from his director's orders. One of the many people forced to play the games of Borderland, Chishiya allies himself with anyone he can in acquiring all of the playing cards to escape. Helping Arisu and Usagi in beating the Five of Spades game, Chishiya joins the organization Beach, using Arisu as bait to find the hiding spot of the playing cards. During the Ten of Hearts game, Chishiya confronts Sugaru Niragi, burning him with a homemade flamethrower, retrieves the Ten of Hearts card, and joins with Arisu's group to beat the citizens of Borderland. Separated from the group, Chishiya beats several of the citizens with nothing but his own wits. Changed by his experiences in Borderland, Chishiya grows into being a better person by the end, demonstrating this by letting himself get shot by Niragi to save Usagi's life.
  • Mira Kano is a mysterious executive member of Beach who is revealed to be a citizen of Borderland. As the Queen of Hearts, Mira is responsible for designing the Hearts games, games that toy with the emotions of the players, turning them against each other, leading to the deaths of many players, including Arisu's two closest friends. The final opponent Arisu must defeat, Mira's game initially appears to be a simple game of Croquet. During the game, Mira takes the time to toy with Arisu a bit with elaborate lies on the secrets behind Borderland before revealing the true nature of her game: gaslighting Arisu into thinking that Borderland only exists in his head as a coping mechanism for losing his friends. Nearly getting Arisu into quitting the game, Mira relents upon seeing Arisu persevere out of his love for Usagi, accepting her defeat and bidding Arisu and Usagi farewell before her demise.
• Alphas: Stanton Parish is an immortal Alpha who intends to create a civil war between Alphas and regular humans, believing his own kind to be in danger from the latter. Parish breaks out all but two inmates of Building Seven, without anybody but the main characters knowing he's involved. He has a lady hypnotize and brainwash anyone in his organization down to the lowest minion to ensure complete loyalty. He lectures the stupid guards as he escapes from custody, and then almost steals psychic's powers. He's had his counterpart's daughter spying for him since before he even knew he existed. When people finally become aware of his existence, after they foiled a terrorist attack of his that would have murdered an entire city Parish hijacks the counter-measures the heroes put in place, and manipulates it so that by defending themselves he can launch an attack that would kill off all non-Alpha humans in the country for what he feels is for the ultimate benefit of the greater good, with the only regular human he intends to survive being Dr. Lee Rosen, who Parish genuinely respects and believes will lead the Alphas into a golden age.
• American Horror Story:
  • Cult: Ally Mayfair-Richards was initially The Paranoiac, but would become much more fearless and conniving. After being released from a psychiatric ward, she would soon seek vengeance on Kai Anderson and his cult for tormenting her. She integrated herself into the cult where she manipulated Kai into killing his siblings and his most loyal followers on the pretense that they were turning against him; Ally also kills her own wife for joining Kai's cult, partaking in her torment and taking her son away from her. She would then have the FBI raid Kai's hideout completely dismantling his cult and arresting Kai. Decided to steal Kai's plan to run for a seat in the Senate, Ally would then arrange Kai's escape from prison, only to have him publicly humiliated on live-television before having him killed. Winning a seat in the Senate and later starting her own cult, Ally Mayfair-Richard undoubtedly proves that there is something more dangerous in this world than a humiliated man: a nasty woman.
  • American Horror Stories' "The Naughty List": The mysterious Serial Killer who murders men working as mall Santas before taking their costumes. He dresses up as Santa Claus to hide in plain sight while finds those he deems naughty to kill. A group of obnoxious influencers one such example and to do so he tracks them down in their home and kills them in various fashions before uploading their deaths on YouTube for everyone to see. By the time the cops arrive, he is already gone before being last being seen stalking another mall Santa and preparing to repeat his MO.
• The Americans's Season 2: Andrew Larrick is a badass Navy Seal and one of the most terrifying opponents to go up against the Jennings, striking fear into even the most hardened of KGB agents. Though his homosexuality has been used to blackmail him into cooperation with the Soviets, Larrick quickly establishes that he has in no way taken this lying down, flatly admitting that he had been meticulously planning the assassination of his handlers before another party beat him to the punch. Subsequently coming under the Jennings' control, Larrick sees through all their efforts to monitor him and defeats a rogue operative seeking to kill him for the atrocities committed by Contras he trained, using her life as leverage to secure his release from the KGB's service. However, when the Jennings unwittingly kill his friends, a vengeful Larrick methodically tracks down and eliminates several of their allies in order to draw out and ambush them, intent on arresting the pair before turning himself in to atone for his crimes.
• And Then There Were None (2015): "U.N. Owen", true identity Justice Lawrence Wargrave, lures 9 guilty parties to Soldier Island with intent to eliminate them according to his own macabre sense of humor and justice. A consummate sadist since youth, Wargrave maintains a sense of humor and justice, reserving the worst fates for the most morally depraved of the group, faking his own death by convincing the only doctor to assist him before eliminating the man to hold his cover. Wargrave proceeds to kill all the others, saving Vera Claythorn for last due to her murder of a little boy under her care, waiting until it is impossible for her to escape and detailing his plans before he allows her to hang and promptly commits suicide to create the ultimate mystery that no one will ever solve.
• Are You Afraid of the Dark?: Dr. Vink is mysterious reoccurring character and a man of many talents and questionable morality. Manipulating countless individuals who cannot guess his riddle to their deaths for his experiments, Vink returns in another tale to save an ailing movie theater only to unleash a vampire from one of his movies when the theater owner reneges on their bargain. As a restaurateur, Vink lures his employees into the clutches of a dark gargoyle to extract their fear for his signature "dangerous soup," always eluding justice and coming out on top. As the mentor to the young Rush Keegan, Vink manipulates the situation to set him against the evil pirate ghost Jonas Cutter to ensure Cutter's victims receive their justice.
• Arrested Development's "Best Man for the GOB": Ira Gilligan is an account who has stolen money from the Bluth Company for many years. To escape the company with the stolen money, Ira puts George Bluth Sr. in a state of fear by threatening to testify against his illegal dealings, causing George Sr. to plan on framing Ira for the murder of a stripper. Ira masterfully uses George Sr.'s plan as a smokescreen for his escape, and even has the stripper sabotage George Sr. By the time Michael Bluth figures out Ira's ploy, Ira has already fled America with the stolen money while keeping the stripper for company.
• Ash vs. Evil Dead: The 1980s Ruby is one who never had the present day version's Heel–Face Turn. Doing away with her demon husband Baal to be free of him when he loses his duel with hero Ashley J. "Ash" Williams, Ruby births a demon spawn of her and Ash so she can subvert Ash's chosen one prophecy. Becoming a guidance counselor to turn Ash's long lost daughter Brandy against her, Ruby uses her child to kill others to frame Ash so she can make him the savior of humanity and keep her fellow Dark Ones sealed so she may rule the world and keep a tight lidded control on the forces of evil, while also using her close friend Kaya as a mole in Ash's team. Even when defeated and left to the mercy of the Dark Ones, Ruby goes out Defiant to the End, vowing that Ash will destroy them in turn.
• Attila: Flavius Aetius is a Roman general and strategist whose patriotism is matched only by his cunning and charisma. Released by Emperor Valentinian's mother Placidia from prison to fight their enemies, he implicates Placidia in an assassination that Aetius foils to isolate her from the emperor. To deal with the Visigoths and the Huns, Aetius desecrates Hunnic corpses and makes the Visigoths look responsible to forge an alliance with the Huns, and takes Attila to Rome to impress the young prince with its splendor. After Attila, now king, builds up the Hunnic Empire and turns on the Romans, Aetius orchestrates a plot to assassinate Attila by convincing a slave girl with a grudge against the Huns to seduce Attila and kill him on their wedding night. Even when Aetius is forced to sacrifice his daughter for the good of Rome, he ensures that the man who took her from him, King Theodoric, will be killed in the final battle against the Huns. Aetius returns to Rome in triumph, and his murder at the hands of the emperor signals the final nail in the coffin for the once mighty empire, for there were no more men capable of defending it.
• Babylon 5:
  • Londo Mollari, despite his buffoonish exterior, steadily grows into true magnificence. In one famous instance, Londo blackmails his rival, the monstrous Antono Refa into helping him using a complex gambit with a poison. Londo proceeds to create a plan to rescue the Centauri from their mad Emperor Cartagia and later arranges a plan to lure Refa to his death at the hands of the Narns when Londo believes Refa murdered the love of Londo's life. For this, Londo simply tells the truth about Refa's horrific crimes and vows to free Narn prisoners in exchange for the Narns murdering Refa. Londo later even manages to outwit the Shadows and their servant Morden, blowing up an entire island to wipe out the Shadow presence on Centauri, even ascending to the throne himself. Even when the Drakh think Londo defeated and broken, he works against them to ensure the freedom of Centauri, even at the end when it costs his own life with his once greatest enemy turned best friend G'kar of Narn.
  • Kosh Naranek is the Vorlon Ambassador to Babylon 5 and an enigmatic figure who often speaks in riddles and resides in an encounter suit. With his long curiosity in the development of the younger races, Kosh has helped guide them to the Vorlon designs. Upon arrival of John Sheridan to Babylon 5, Kosh makes him into his pupil, even as he manipulates him and numerous others across the station. Training Sheridan to face "legends", Kosh likewise manipulates the Narn resistance leader G'kar to better enable him to lead his people in the aftermath of their darkest hour. Sacrificing his life to push the Vorlons into war, Kosh ensures a piece of him remains in Sheridan to later save his life and to defeat his former comrade Ulkesh to allow humanity to stop both Vorlons and the Shadows.
  • Alfred Bester is a charming psychic operative who combines ruthless scheming with an infuriating charisma that drives the heroes crazy even as they are forced to respect his skill. Bester can do this even when his telepathic powers have been removed, frequently arriving on Babylon 5 and twisting events to suit his purposes or the purpose of the Psi-Corps. In one such instance, Bester tricks a prisoner by claiming he can read his mind, even when Bester has been blocked from doing so, relying on bluffs and gambits to get the information he desires when he simply suspected the prisoner must be lying. Bester frequently enacts daring schemes either for the benefit of the Corps or himself, only breaking from his self-serving nature when the woman he loves is threatened by the Shadows, stating that it has made Babylon 5's war his own.
• Banshee:
  • Job is a computer hacking genius who uses his skills to orchestrate many bank robberies. When an old friend of Job gets released from prison, he tells him about the town Banshee and gives him the identity "Lucas Hood" so he could start a new life. Job would also find himself going to Banshee where he organized many robberies and rescues there, one of which was a highly secured Marine Base leading to Job's capture. After bring rescue from his captors 20 months later, Job would track down the man who got him captured and ruin his life by making him culpable to all his crimes while Job leaves Banshee with all the money he stolen to start his own new life.
  • Kai Proctor is a wealthy business man and criminal kingpin that rules the titular town from the shadows. Enduring a feud with rival crime lord Alex Longshadow, Proctor would gain the upper hand first by blowing up one of Alex's hotel killing the mayor along the way, having "Lucas Hood" decimate Alex's forces after previously saving his life once, and has his niece Rebecca kill Alex. Facing another opponent from Philadelphia drug dealer Frazier, he would escape Frazier's captivity before returning to kill Frazier. He would eventually become Mayor of Banshee and become allies with the Aryan Brotherhood and the Cartel while finding ways to deter any problems within both criminal organizations. When his luck with the Cartel runs out due to one of their drug shipments being destroyed under Proctor's supervision, Proctor faces them alone with a Thompson Submachine gun to kill as many Cartel hitmen as he can.
• Barry: As portrayed in the in-universe movie, "The Mask Collector", Gene Cousineau is a charismatic, suavely British acting coach who uses his class to obscure his true identity as a criminal mastermind working with the Chechen mafia. Behind the death of Ryan Madison, Gene seduces the lead detective on the case, Janice Moss, and murders her before framing Barry Berkman for her death when Barry refuses to help Gene cover it up. Taking Barry's family hostage to further his goals, Gene is confronted by Barry in the end and calmly shoots him dead, musing that it didn't have to end so messily.
• Battlestar Galactica (2003): Romo Lampkin is a survivor of the Cylon genocide and a charismatic Amoral Attorney who agrees to defend Gaius Baltar in his trial for collaboration with the Cylons on New Caprica for the infamy it will bring him. Lampkin proceeds to subtly manipulate both his own client and the witnesses, while his legal experience allows him to dismantle the case against Baltar effortlessly, including getting his own co-counsel Lee Adama to testify and swing the judges' votes in his favor. Lampkin returns when Lee hires him to select a new President of the Colonies after Laura Roslin goes missing before threatening Lee at gunpoint to extract a compelling Patrick Stewart Speech out of him on why he is fit to lead. Lampkin manages to survive Gaeta and Zarek's mutiny by killing a marine with nothing but a pen, later joining the settlers on Earth after briefly having been promoted to President himself.
• Belgravia:
  • Susan Trenchard is James Trenchard's daughter-in-law and as much of a Social Climber as her father-in-law. Persuading her mother-in-law Anne to have her invited to a reception hosted by the Countess of Brockenhurst, Susan catches the eye of the Countess's nephew John Bellasis and has an affair with him, concocting one lie after another to conceal her trysts. Accompanying her in-laws to their estate at John's behest, Susan tricks Anne into revealing that James' dealings with his business partner Charles Pope are about more than just money. Learning she is pregnant with John's child, Susan suggests they marry after she divorces James' son Oliver. When John rejects her, Susan steals papers about Charles' true history as the Brockenhursts' grandson in hopes of ruining John. Making arrangements for her child's future at the family estate, Susan gets Oliver to comply with her plan by telling him she's giving him the life he's always wanted, a life that wouldn't be possible without her infidelity.
  • Speer is Susan Trenchard's shrewd and observant personal maid. Learning of her mistress's interest in John Bellasis, Speer ferments the idea of Susan and John having an affair, intending to take advantage of a possible connection and always having an alibi ready whenever Susan met John. When John asks her for information about the Trenchards, Speer points him in the direction of other servants who might know more, keeping her own hands clean. After Susan shows Speer the papers about Charles Pope, Speer creates a cover story on the spot about how Susan acquired them, helping to get the guilty servants sacked, and blackmailing one about his black market deals, declaring that if she leaves, she'll be walking away with money and glowing praise.
• Between the Lions: Silent E is a notorious criminal who delights in changing the meaning of words by adding a silent "e" to the end. Having kidnapped a group of vowels to force them to say their names, Silent E spreads chaos throughout the town, transforming a twin boy into twine, and inconveniencing another by changing his canned drink into a cane. Upon being apprehended by the police officer, Silent E deceives the man into handing him an object of interest and making it into a tool for escape.
• Big Sky (Season 1): Cheyenne Kleinsasser is the only daughter of Horst and the youngest of his four children. Seeking to free her mother Margaret from Horst's hostile control and knowing her brothers J.W. and Rand framed her other brother Blake to get the family ranch, Cheyenne berates Margaret to instill anger in her and get her to quit her pill addiction. Witnessing Blake's murder at J.W.'s hands, Cheyenne stages his death as either accidental or suicide to hold it over J.W., takes possession of the belt of a ranch hand Rand killed as insurance too and then also feeds information to PIs Jenny Hoyt and Cassie Dewell to help them with their investigation as well. After Rand is killed and Cheyenne kills J.W. in self-defense, Cheyenne helps cover up Margaret's murder of Horst and then takes possession of the ranch for them alone.
• Black Mirror: "Demon 79": Gaap is a demon-in-training who was sent to convince meek sales lady Nida to kill 3 people to prevent the apocalypse and keep him out of purgatory. While being a compassionate and kind person to Nida, even using a form she liked through Bobby Farrell from Boney-M, he uses manipulation and his powers to make her see the incoming apocalypse as well as the crimes of her potential victims, convincing her to kill a child rapist and murderer. Despite Nida going against him to kill Micheal Smart against his wishes, and despite Nida failing, Gaap takes his incoming fate with stride as he finds a loophole in the rules to take Nida with him to purgatory so the two can spend eternity together as the world that rejected Nida burned.
• Black Sails:
  • John Silver starts off as a selfish Opportunistic Bastard but quickly becomes more brave and daring, while still keeping his sly charm. Originally, just a cook in Captain James Flint's crew, he soon rose up the ranks to becoming Flint's right hand man by burning the schedule Flint dearly wants, forcing Flint to trust Silver to help him find the Urca gold. After finding the treasure, they wind soon be captured by a Spanish Man-O-War, where Silver proceeds to elicit conflict within the crew, allowing Flint to commandeer the ship. Arriving at Nassau, Silver has Jack Rackham's crew salvage the gold for him while Flint goes to war with Charles Vane, and teams up with the latter to rescue Flint in Charlestown. Becoming stranded on an island with the Maroons, Silver brokers an alliance with the Maroons and the Pirates against the British Empire, and has one of his own men "defect" to the British forces led by Benjamin Hornigold to lure them into a trap leading to their decimation. Taking the moniker "Long" John Silver, he gains a reputation that exceeds even that of Flint's, eventually removing Flint from piracy by reuniting him with his lover, Thomas, while Silver ends the war that Flint once started.
  • Charles Vane is a bold pirate who once helped to overthrow his mentor Blackbeard. In present, after being deposed by his crew, Vane returns to seize control again and dedicates himself to the freedom of Nassau. When his old flame, Eleanor, is threatened by the sadistic Ned Low, Vane outwits, traps and murders him before nailing his head to a post with a sign reading "I angered Charles Vane." Vane also organizes the sack of a city when it seeks to execute him to save himself and Flint, before helping to organize Nassau's defenses. Even in death, Vane allows himself to be hanged to inspire Nassau to rebellion, reminding the crowd that the British are not as numerous as the islanders and "they can't hang us all" before ordering the hangman to get on with it.
  • Jack Rackham, Vane's former right hand man, comes from the bottom to organize a new crew and pirate venture, stealing a fortune of gold out from under the noses of every other player. After the death of Vane, Rackham helps to organize some of the most devastating defeats of the British, and when he finally helps to defeat his nemesis, Woodes Rogers, Rackham on a plan to destroy him by having Rogers' debts purchased and defaulted upon, writing all his failures into a public ledger as Rogers is forced to hear his once-promising future destroyed. Rackham ends the series still secretly a pirate, setting sail for adventure anew with his beloved Anne Bonney at his side.
• Blackadder the Third: Mr. Edmund Blackadder Esq., the third Blackadder, is the butler to the idiotic Prince George of Regency England. A roguish cheat who constantly scams money out of his employer, Blackadder is also left with the task of running the country, manipulating the election of his completely idiotic sidekick Baldrick to the House of Commons to vote down a measure harmful to the prince by setting up a Rotten Borough and taking over the position as the only voter as well as the supervisor of elections by murdering his predecessors. When a bet is made for him to one-up The Scarlet Pimpernel, he simply opts to head down to a coffee house and find an aristocrat at the French embassy. When the real Scarlet Pimpernel is about to reveal his treachery, Blackadder promptly murders him and wins a great award from Prince George by claiming to be the true Scarlet Pimpernel. Even in the finale, Blackadder sees Prince George dead when they've switched identities and takes the chance to claim to be the real prince to the insane King George III, gleefully ascending to the throne of England several years later.
• The Blacklist: Raymond "Red" Reddington starts the show by turning himself over to the FBI to assist them in taking down a supposedly-dead terrorist, who is just the first out of many in the eponymous Blacklist. He follows that up by constantly manipulating the Feds and criminals to pursue his own agendas. Raymond goes against the worst criminals in the world, constantly outplaying them and leading them to ruin while working towards his own master plan, using others as bait or pawns in his schemes. In one famous incident, he outwits human trafficker Floriana Campo and leaves her poisoned out of his revulsion towards her business, but not before destroying her good name and watching her beg for her life. Despite his ruthlessness, Raymond truly respects those who work for him and cares greatly about series heroine and FBI agent Elizabeth. A man with nerves of steel, Reddington rarely ever loses his temper or composure, frequently playing cop and criminal for his own mysterious ends.
• Blood & Treasure:
  • Simon Hardwick, aka Karim Farouk, is an international smuggler and one of the most brilliant foes Danny and Lexi had ever faced. Serving as the Big Bad for season one, Hardwick gives terrorist Rasheed Hegazi his identity to use, having Hegazi attack Reece's properties and steal the sarcophagus of Mark Anthony before killing him to prevent his identity from being revealed. Hardwick also allies with Danny McNamara and Lexi Vaziri to retrieve the sarcophagus of Cleopatra, using both Sarcophagi to unleash a toxin in Reece's museum to kill Reece for abandoning him and his mother, nearly succeeding in completing his revenge. Eventually brought to justice by Danny and Lexi, Hardwick gets broken out of prison by the Great Khan, where Hardwick would help the Khan find the Soul of Genghis Khan while secretly plotting with Danny and Lexi to stop the Khan, eventually turning the Khan's army against them before making his escape, stealing 10 million dollars and continuing his criminal profession.
  • Captain Bruno Fabi is a member of the Brotherhood of Serapis, who has infiltrated the Carabinieri TPC eventually becoming its leader while using their resources to prevent anyone from finding the Sarcophagus of Cleopatra. When he learns that one of the members is working for Karim Farouk, Fabi disguises himself as a paramedic to get close enough to kill Farouk's spy and coerces Lexi Vaziri into allying with him, threatening to kill her Love Interest, Danny McNamara should she reveal their alliance to him. When Danny finds out Fabi agrees to help Danny and Lexi find Cleopatra before Farouk does, eventually helping Danny rescue Lexi when she's been held hostage. Dying saving Lexi, Fabi reveals that Lexi's mother was working with the Brotherhood to protect Cleopatra, with Fabi's death inspiring Lexi to carry out her mother's duties.
  • Season 2: Violet is the True Great Khan and a master thief serving as Lexi Vaziri's partner in orchestrating many robberies until her capture. Creating an army during her time in prison, Violet uses them to break out of prisoner before giving command to Batu having them attack various places while also allying herself with Lexi and her friends in ensure she has the best chance of finding the Spirit Banner of Genghis Kahn. She reveals her true allegiance by taking personal command of her army after Batu gets killed and offers Lexi to join her side after they find the Spirit Banner. Violet would then use the myth of the Banner containing a deadly virus to bring the whole world into a state of panic so no one would catch on to her true plan of stealing 1.5 trillion dollars in Hong Kong giving the Spirit Banner to an wealthy art collector so he can help her with her heist while planning to nuke Hong Kong to cover her tracks.
• Boardwalk Empire:
  • Arnold Rothstein is one of the most powerful gangsters in New York. Upon losing a major shipment of liquor that brings him in conflict with Enoch "Nucky" Thompson, Rothstein wages a proxy war using his associates, the D'Alessio brothers, to create a problem for Nucky in Atlantic City before selling them out when they cease being of use. Managing to connive his way as the sole supplier for Nucky's alcohol, Rothstein later punishes his wayward proteges Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky for going behind his back by setting up their arrest with the heroin of rival Sicilian mobster Joe Masseria while having the heroin delivered back to him so he can cut Masseria in as the weaker partner, making more money and humiliating his would-be rivals in one move.
  • Giovanni "Johnny" Torrio presents as one of the most conciliatory and reasonable mobsters who is nevertheless a force to be reckoned with. Upon his boss Giacomo "Big Jim" Colosimo refusing to get into bootlegging, Torrio sets him up for death and takes over the Chicago rackets, bringing in profits like never before. Helping to set up the crew of Charlie Sheridan for death after their attack on one of his prostitutes, Torrio later helps to arrange a peace with the Irish mob led by Dean O'Banion, only to have O'Banion killed when he tries to foolishly betray Torrio. After his seeming retirement, Torrio allies with Luciano and Lansky, using his good reputation to help set Nucky up for death or to lose everything.
  • Charlie "Lucky" Luciano and his best friend Meyer Lansky spend the first four seasons learning at the sides of the greatest mobsters of the age and put their lessons into ruthless practice in season 5. Luciano has his former mentor and boss Joe Masseria assassinated after manipulating him to his death, seizing control of his outfits and having his rivals killed. Luciano and Lansky proceed to force the other mobsters to submit to them or convince them it is in their best interest to give in and "partner" with them before forcing Nucky Thompson's capitulation by kidnapping his nephew to use as leverage. Realizing that the criminal Valentine Narcisse may also prove a problem, Luciano and Lansky allow him to think he is safe for a time before having him publicly assassinated, ending the season as the dominant masters of organized crime, sitting down to do business with a new coalition of their making.
• Bones' "The Murder in the Middle East": Jimmy Kosinski is a charming yet vicious bookie, planning to get money from FBI agent Seeley Booth after a bet of his goes wrong. Jimmy subtly threatens Booth's wife, Dr. Temperance Brennan, and their daughter for the money by disguising it as but a simple visit he will make. When Booth's partner James Aubrey tries to stop him, Jimmy simply says he could reveal Booth's gambling issues to the press and ruin his FBI career if they try, while cleverly masking it as just a hypothetical scenario, knowing there's nothing they can do to react to this threat with it being presented like that. Ultimately, Jimmy ends his run as one of the show's most successful villains, having gotten the money and one of the few to get away with it all.
• Brimstone: The Devil himself is the one who manipulates hero Ezekiel "Zeke" Stone, into going to earth to reclaim 113 damned souls who fled hell, holding out the promise of a new hope of heaven over Stone's head. Throughout the series, the Devil is charming, witty and sarcastic, constantly monitoring events and arranging things to have Zeke return his quarry to hell while demonstrating a frightening amount of insight, while always teasing Zeke and pushing him to do his job. While playing Zeke constantly, the Devil 's main interest is keeping the status quo, while always willing to welcome the new damned souls into his domain.
• The Bridge (2011): The Truth Terrorist, real name Sebastian Sandstrod, the Big Bad of season 1 is an athletic and military-trained but also well-dressed and charismatic Serial Killer who wants to bring attention to social problems. To do this, the Terrorist starts killing them, giving the issue more attention than ever. Having five children kidnapped and placed inside a locked room, the Terrorist wants to bring attention to child labor by giving a demand that people will have to burn down the offices of five companies using it, everytime it happens he spares one child each, and doesn't back out of the deal once they do as he says. Placing Hennig, an officer committing misconduct which lead to a man's death in the basement of said man's brother, the Terrorist tries framing the brother for the murder by having him torture Hennig. With his true goal being revealed to get vengeance on Martin Rohde for cheating on Sandstrod's wife before she along with their son died, Sandstrod, then named Jens Hansen and the best policeman around, now wants revenge on Rohde for ruining his life. He does this by having Rohde's eldest son August build a good relationship with his father by putting them through life-threatening situations, only to later kill him, just so that it would hurt more.
• Brooklyn Nine-Nine:
  • Doug Judy is the Pontiac Bandit, an affable car thief known for stealing 200 cars. Making himself known to Jake by pretending to be an informant, Doug sends Jake on a goose chase to the barber Doug framed, while he slips past him unnoticed. When Doug unexpectedly encounters Jake, he gives him the drug manufacturer of giggle pig in exchange for a four-star hotel suite where he collaborates with the suite's waiter on his escape, with Jake being too busy capturing the manufacturer. When Doug learns of a hitman trying to kill him he contacts Jake for help, making sure to meet Jake on a cruise ship, where Jake has no jurisdiction, escaping once Jake catches the hitman. Doug later helps Jake capture Doug's adopted brother in exchange for full immunity of his crimes. Getting Jake’s attention again by holding hostages, Doug gets Jake involved in a plan to rescue his mother from a drug lord before escaping once more. Upon getting engaged to a judge who wants Doug to uninvite his criminal friends, Doug gets Jake involved in his bachelor party knowing that Jake will get his friends arrested, resulting in Doug avoiding having to uninvite them directly. Always being Jake’s most elusive adversary, Doug Judy’s master planning was only matched by his unlimited charm.
  • Trudy Judy is the younger sister of Doug Judy. Turning to crimes for the fun of it, Trudy eventually discovers Doug's old notebooks, and decides to follow his footsteps as a car thief. After being caught, Trudy takes advantage of her brother offering to capture an arms dealer she stole a Ferrari from in exchange for Trudy's charges being reduced. Having an employee of hers act as if he bought the stolen car, Trudy manipulates Doug into arguing with Terry, distracting them from noticing that her employee placed a bomb in the Ferrari. She later sets off the bomb when the car is being delivered, and uses the chaos to sneak away without facing any charges. With an attitude as playful as her brother's, Trudy earns the distinction of being the first person to outwit Doug Judy.
• The Brothers Sun: Eileen "Mama" Sun is the matriarch of the Jade Dragons who aspires for leadership over the ruthless Triads to make them more "legitimate". To this end, she sets up the Boxers to be killed in an assassination attempt on the Triad heads and buy their favor. When caught by the Boxers, Eileen makes them serve her tea and refuses to help them, even at the cost of her friend's life. After Big Sun reenters the scene and tries to have her and Bruce killed, Eileen, upon his defeat, gets the last laugh by forging his health charts as a fake diabetic to make him receive painful, numbing dosages of insulin, rendering him unable to threaten their lives again. In the end, Eileen finds herself free to lead and reform the Triads and proves to be a charming, cunning Mama Bear who truly loves and protects the family, albeit in ruthless ways.
• The Cape:
  • Peter Fleming/Chess is a self-made billionaire who supplies vital services to Palm city, eventually including its police. He is also the psychopathic crime lord named Chess, who is a manifestation of Fleming's darker split personality, although his normal side also seems conniving and amoral. He claims that he wants good things for Palm City, but even if he is sincere, he runs illegal arms, murders honest city officials, scapegoats loyal subordinates and innocent family men, and threatens people's families. Fleming seeks to suppress his Chess persona for unclear reasons, and also is looking for his missing daughter, unaware that she is working with The Cape. Fleming redirects military satellites to see out his enemies. He forms a brief Enemy Mine moment with the Cape to personally navigate the underbelly of a moving train that he's a passenger on to keep it from crashing. He claims to know the value of I Owe You My Life, but will make exceptions and try to kill the Cape to eliminate the obstacle to his empire. Fleming ends the series with his power and reputation cracked, but still intact.
  • Max Malini is the showy but introspective bank-robbing magician and circus owner who forms an alliance of mutual convenience with Vince (who he initially contemplates killing for being useless to him) to hurt Fleming by stealing his money. Max gives Vince the eponymous cape and teaches him how to use it. A bond develops between the two, and Max seems to get more invested in Vince's crusade. Nonetheless, he won't abandon a lucrative heist to help Vince and the two sadly agree that one day they may become enemies. Nonetheless, they continue to work together and show concern for each other. Max also claims to have fallen out with the cape's murderous previous wearer due to the man getting Drunk on the Dark Side enough to scare Max and make him regret his own darkest deeds. However, there are hints that Max has engineered Vince into using the cape for some mysterious, greater plan of his own. While the series resolves without revealing the good or evil nature of Max's ultimate goal, and whether it will ever succeed, he remains composed, intelligent, and encouraging even in the last moments of the show.
  • "Kozmo": Gregor Molotov is a ruthless killer and estranged student of Max's in the art of crime, illusions, and escapes. He is a master of Death Dealer-styled murders, contortion, and seemingly vanishing into thin air. Gregor spent twenty years of harsh incarceration repeatedly escaping and dreaming of reclaiming his prized cape, even though he recognizes that it brought out the worst in him. After finally successfully escaping, Gregor tries to reclaim the cape, first with polite but steely requests, and then through force. He attempts to brutally kill Max and his lieutenants after managing to ambush and defeat all of them offscreen and briefly reclaims the cape before Vince overpowers him after a closely matched battle. He is last seen being taken away to prison, although Max grimly states that Gregor's talents as an escapist means they haven't heard the last of him.
  • "Dice": Tracey Jerrod is a mathematical savant who is able to use numbers to predict the future. She knows exactly when to talk past security guards so that they'll be too busy to notice, can predict the exact results of rolling a quarter into a room (setting off a Rube Goldberg Device Disaster Dominoes trap), and more. She struggles with A God Am I feelings but is amused to encounter a Spanner in the Works that reminds her she's human and fallible. Fleming kills her father, something Tracey predicated from a young age, and appropriates the work he modeled after Tracey to patent computers which can predict the future. Tracey sets out to kill Fleming in revenge and vows to kill anyone who stands in her way, although she doesn't always troy to follow through with those threats. Tracey has no unsavory plans beyond killing Fleming and halting his product's production and only fails at her goals due to Vince's reluctant interference.
  • "Goggles & Hicks":
    • Goggles is one half of the Sibling Team of hired assassins known as “The Chariot.” He is a wheelchair-bound hacker and gadgeteer with a fondness for superhero fiction and is intrigued to find himself pursuing a real-life costumes vigilante on Fleming's behalf. He is resolute in getting inside his targets heads and learning about them before his brother Hicks makes the kills. He arranges a fake underworld meeting to draw out the Cape and put a tracker on him and through this, quickly discovers Vince's true identity and who his family is. He decides to keep Vince's secret but still is intent on killing him, and almost succeeds in helping his brother corner and kill Vince. Goggles never loses his cheery confidence except when he thinks his brother is in danger and then is left lying helpless on his back during a fight.
    • Hicks is the brother and partner of Goggles, acting as the duo's sniper, drone controller, and close quarters combatant. Hicks lacks Goggle's affability and spends most of the episode acting as a quiet observer or The Heavy, although he isn't quite skilled enough to beat Vince. Contrary to others opinions, Hicks is a formidable force even without Goggles once his brother is captured. A distraught Hicks goes to Fleming for help, intending to offer him a thread from the cape that is stuck to his knife and the information about the Cape's identity. Before he can mention the later, Fleming fires him, so Hicks instead approaches Orwell and Vince. He makes it clear that he could bring down Vince with the digital file Goggles made about him. Instead, he trades it, and a promise of silence, to Vince for the location of Goggles so he can break his brother out of jail. He then calmly departs after saying they may cross paths again if anyone else pays the brothers to go after Vince.
• Carnivàle: Iris Crowe is a fairly spectacular example. The sweet, innocent spinster sister of Brother Justin? Has not only spent her entire life playing Xanatos Speed Chess with her brother's true nature, but burned down her brother's church to get him publicity, allowed an innocent man to go to jail and eventual execution for what she did, lured an innocent woman out beyond the camp and then bashed her over the head with a boat oar, to keep her from talking about how evil Justin really is and kept the secret of Sofie's paternity from everyone. After the big battle, when Ben and Justin are lying dead in the cornfield, the New Canaan faithful have almost been completely slaughtered by Justin, and the Carnivale has had to slip away for fear of the authorities in the early morning hours, what is Iris doing? Cooling her heels as the Last One Standing.
• Charmed (1998): In their battle against the forces of evil, the Charmed Ones have faced some truly genius and charismatic foes. These are the most brilliant that the forces of evil have to offer against The Power of Three:
  • Kyra "The Seer" is introduced as a Deadpan Snarker psychic demon Knowledge Broker who's just as comfortable helping the heroes as she is giving a demon-human hybrid the information necessary to murder his entire family. Kyra shows a knack for avoiding harm from unsatisfied clients due to seeing their attacks coming. When one of her visions reveals that the Avatars are on the verge of wiping out demonkind, Kyra wants the Whitelighters to make her human to escape that fate. She bargains with a vision that she's seen of the Avatars' game plans while misleading them on how dire it is so they'll be willing to accept her deal. Yet pragmatism isn't Kyra's only motive for wanting to become human, secretly being sick of the centuries she's spent abetting evil and feels a sense of loss in being biologically incapable of feeling love and other emotions that visions let her see others experiencing. Kyra's desire to become human for the right reasons quickly becomes her defining trait. While she ultimately is killed by a demon unhappy by her betrayal, it's due to circumstances no one could have seen coming, and in the sequel comics is resurrected and made human just like she wanted to be.
  • Season 1: "Inspector Rodriguez" is an upper-level demon posing as a police officer to investigate the deaths of his brethren at the hands of the Charmed Ones. Discovering the Charmed Ones' identities, Rodriguez kills his human police partner and then frames their ally Andy Tredeu for the murder. Rodriguez uses the framing to manipulate Andy into getting the Charmed Ones into one place by playing on his love for Prue Haliwell to ensure she brings all her sisters to help confront him as planned. Getting help from the demon Tempus, who locks the Charmed Ones into an endless "Groundhog Day" Loop, Rodriguez is able to use it to recover and improve ways to kill all of them for good, leading to a Near-Villain Victory for the forces of evil. Calm, badass and giving the Charmed Ones their first major defeat by killing Andy permanently, Rodriguez would ultimately show the true power of the Underworld.
  • "Déjà Vu All Over Again" : Tempus, the Demon of Time, is a charismatic, laid back upper-level demon with the ability to control time. Tempus contacts and makes a deal with Inspector Rodriguez to have the Charmed Ones gathter in one place, telling him he has a way to "allow him to improve from his mistakes". Tempus creates a "Groundhog Day" Loop which resets upon Rodriguez's death and sets time to earlier on in the day, and uses it as a way to contact and help Rodriguez improve his method for killing the Charmed Ones. Tempus ensures that each loop stays exactly the same but for the way that the Charmed Ones are killed, to ensure its effectiveness and lead to victory being only one loop away.
  • "Repo Manor": Savard is a crafty demon who will go to any length to free his species from horrible slavery at the hands of the powerful demon the "Slave King". Knowing that only the "Power of Three" can defeat the Slave King, Savard trains three apprentices to try to copy it by learning the motivations of the Charmed Ones and eventually comes up with a scheme to drain their powers using a magic dollhouse. Eventually Savard kidnaps Phoebe Halliwell and replaces her with one of his apprentices to discover if the Power of Three would still be in effect with them. When it succeeds, he does the same with Paige Halliwell. Having his apprentices manipulate Piper Haliwell into finding the Vanquish potion for the Slave King by preying on her wanting her lost husband back, Savard is able to defeat the Slave King and free his people.
  • "Kill Billie Vol. 2": Nomed is a snarky and cunning lower-level demon who desires to vanquish the powerful, demonic Triad to allow the new generation of demons to finally arise from the shadow of the old. Manipulating the Charmed One into an Enemy Mine and correctly deducing their whereabouts from their behaviour, Nomed helps reveal the survival of The Triad and convinces them he will act as their spy to discover the plans of the Triad to use the power draining Hollow. Convincing the Charmed Ones to use the Hollow themselves, Nomed gives them information on the whereabouts of the Triad and sends them there, leading to the end of the old generation of demons. One of the show's most successful villains, Nomed ultimately helps to usher in the rise of the new generation of demons and achieves everything he wants.
• Chilling Adventures of Sabrina: Lilith, aka Madam Satan, was the first witch who has faithfully served Lucifer Morningstar for ages. Killing Sabrina Spellman's teacher and taking her identity, Lilith flawlessly manipulates Sabrina to darkness, subverting her good intentions and eventually getting Sabrina to sign her name in Lucifer's book. Turning on Lucifer to assist the heroes when he kills her human lover, Lilith manages to see him confined while she takes over rulership of Hell. Even when Lucifer manages to escape, Lilith negotiates her own survival and stays close to bide her time, eventually able to permanently steal Lucifer's powers and banish him to Earth as a mortal.
• Chouseishin Gransazer: Impactor-Logia is the commander of the Impactor trio and the most persistent foe of the Gransazers. Sent by the Cosmic Alliance to eradicate humanity, Logia poses as a research assistant to infiltrate Professor Wakui's lab and help him complete the Guntroller, before stealing it and using it to hijack Guntras. Plotting to fly Guntras into the sun and trigger a supernova that will destroy the Earth, Logia's plan is only thwarted when his subordinate Lucia gets captured, allowing the Gransazers to retake the Guntroller when Logia rescues her. After Lucia dies trying to avenge their loss, Logia disobeys his superiors and remains on Earth to take revenge on the Gransazers, formulating several devious plans that come close to succeeding despite being outnumbered twelve-to-one. Coming to respect Tenma and growing distrustful of his superiors, Logia periodically assists the Gransazers against Belzeus' assassins and arrests Belzeus once his crimes are exposed. Bidding farewell to Tenma, Logia returns to the Cosmic Alliance's fleet, not caring what judgment he'll receive as he's simply tired of fighting.
• Chuck:
  • Carina Miller is an agent of the DEA and one of Sarah's oldest friends. Before her first mission with Team Bartowski, Carina manipulates Chuck into trusting her over Sarah by revealing the latter's relationship with Bryce Larkin, leading to him handing her the Nadan-i-Noor after stealing it from Peyman Alahi. After abandoning Chuck and Sarah, Carina hides the diamond in Morgan's bag while distracting him with a kiss, then chains a pursuing Casey to her bed after seducing him. During her second trip to Burbank, Carina convinces Karl Stromberg that she really did fall in love with him after her cover is blown, giving her the chance to knock him out when his guard is down. Flirtatious and unpredictable, Carina ultimately proves to be a good person deep down when she helps Chuck rescue Sarah from Alahi, gives Sarah a recording of Chuck confessing his love for her, and helps Chuck cure Sarah of the Norse Virus, before finally attending the two's wedding as a bridesmaid.
  • "Chuck Versus the American Hero" & "Chuck Versus the Other Guy": The Director is the head of the Ring and behind many foes Team Bartowski face during their first few years. Discovering footage of Evelyn Shaw being killed by CIA agent Sarah Walker, the Director uses said footage to manipulate Evelyn's husband Daniel into joining the Ring. Luring Chuck and Sarah to his base, the Director tricks the two spies into taking the Ring's flawed Cipher, before having Shaw fake his death to further sell the latter's loyalty to the CIA. Snarky and cunning, the Director comes close to perfecting the Ring's Intersect with the data from the Cipher Shaw passes over to him, only failing due to Morgan discovering Shaw's betrayal.
• The Closer's "Heart Attack": Dr. Luis Navarro is a brilliant transplant surgeon who decides to take justice into his own hands when he barely saves a twelve year old girl from death after she was gangraped and mutilated. Deducing that one of his free clinic's patients was the leader of the gangrape, Navarro drugs him into giving up the names of his accomplices, then kills the man and harvests his organs to use to save the life of another of his other patients. Deciding to do even more good, Navarro begins tracking down the gangrapists, killing them, and taking their organs to use in the hospital to save the lives of people on the donor list, then disposing of his victims' bodies in such a way that law enforcement believes it is the work of cartels to throw them off his scent. When finally confronted by Brenda Lee Johnson, Navarro shuts down her attempts to paint him as a scumbag crook, instead focusing on the fact that he's genuinely helping people and rounding off his charming Motive Rant by agreeing to confess only if the heart of his latest murder victim is used to save the life of a young patient.
• Code Lyoko: Evolution: After its defeat in Code Lyoko, XANA barely survived Jérémie's multi-agent program by fleeing inside the Cortex and giving its source codes to Ulrich, Yumi, Odd and Aélita in order to later regain its strength by retaking them. Still wanting to Take Over the World, XANA uses Lyoko's towers to sent specters on Earth in order to take back its codes. A master manipulator, XANA successfully manipulated Aélita into giving it most of her codes by having a specter masquerading as her mother and almost succeeded in manipulating William into joining it by pointing out the heroes' genuine failures in handling him. An opportunist, XANA also hacked Kadic's computer system in order to distract the heroes while it attempts to destroy the Skidbladnir. XANA also successfully figures out Jérémie's plan of using fake codes against him, forcing the latter to abandon the plan despite its initial success. Despite losing most of its power and its murderous tendencies, XANA lost none of its smarts, regaining 95% of its power by the end of the series.
• Community:
  • Robert Laybourne is the Vice Dean of Greendale Community College and holds the true power of the school. Witnessing Troy Barnes effortlessly repair an air conditioner, Laybourne tries to get Troy to join his Air Conditioning Repair School, even getting Dean Craig Pelton to help him accomplish his goal. Eventually Laybourne manipulates Troy and his best friend, Abed Nadir, against each other briefly destroying their friendship and creating a war engulfing Greendale. When Troy pleads with Laybourne to help him overthrow Ben Chang, Laybourne complies on the sole condition that Troy leaves his friends and join his annex. Finally successful in recruiting Troy to his school, Laybourne is killed by his second-in-command, Murray, but Laybourne's influence inspires Troy to challenge Murray for the title of the "Truest Repairman", with Troy easily defeating Murray and getting Murray to confess to Laybourne's murder, with Laybourne's ghost appearing to show approval at what Troy has accomplished.
  • Stephen Spreck is the Dean of City College who seeks to destroy Greendale Community College. Spreck convinces Annie to help him steal the Greendale space simulator by promising her a City College admission and when she later has a change of heart, he merely states she is not City College material. He then returns in the two-part season finale, first setting up a fake ice cream company and then convincing the school to trash itself by offering up a $100,000 paintball prize. To ensure no student gets the prize he even sends in a ringer, and when that fails declares war on the school, coming very close to winning. While the study group were defined by their love for Greendale, Spreck was defined by his desire to destroy it.
  • "Conspiracy Theories and Interior Design": Professor Sean Garrity is Greendale's charismatic drama teacher, who Dean Pelton approaches when he wants help in teaching Jeff about the dangers of academic fraud. For his part, Garrity creates a false identity, and a fake night school filled with non-existent courses, students and teachers. He then creates a false identity for his false identity, posing as Jeff's "Conspiracy Theories and U.S. History" teacher. After Jeff uncovers his true identity and decides to teach the Dean a lesson, Garrity complies and pretends to have been shot by Annie, resulting in a massive Gambit Pileup where Jeff, Annie, and Pelton think that one of them has really shot someone. After Officer Cackowski shoots him with a prop gun, Garrity reveals that he orchestrated everything to impart the lesson that guns, even prop ones, are not toys.
• Creepshow:
  • "Man In The Suitcase": The titular man in the suitcase appears to be a helpless businessman painfully folded into a suitcase who somehow produces gold whenever he is harmed. In truth, the man is a powerful djinn, far more cunning and in control than he lets on. Seeking out corrupt souls, the djinn feigns at helplessness to see who will try to harm a helpless man for money, even while being unable to repress a dry sense of sarcastic humor. After the segment's hero Justin is upset at the prospect of harming him for wealth, Justin's girlfriend Carla and best friend Alex betray and nearly kill him, whereupon the djinn gleefully takes the chance to present to them their own suitcases, saving Justin and taking the two off for a most unpleasant fate.
  • "Stranger Sings": Miranda is a flesh-eating siren from the days of Ancient Greece. Seeking a normal life after having lured countless men to their gruesome deaths, Miranda uses her friend Sarah to entice the hapless doctor Barry into performing a surgery on her to remove the vocal cords and give them to Sarah. With the surgery being a success, Miranda becomes mortal again, and kills Sarah as she attempts to rape and kill Barry. Feeling regretful for all the trouble she's caused Barry, Miranda offers to take him on a date.
• Criminal Minds:
  • "Secrets and Lies":
    • Bruno Hawks is a deputy director of the CIA whose reasonable leadership hides his devious traits. In truth the mole aligned with Hassan Nadir, Bruno discovers Agent Summers had converted Nadir's wife to the CIA and smuggles Hassan into the country to find her, torturing Summers to discover her location; when it becomes clear that he won't break, Bruno simply snaps his neck, knowing the CIA will cover it up for him. When the BAU begins investigating, Bruno lets everyone else incriminate themselves without interfering, only taking direct action when Olivia investigates him; after planting a virus at Spence's station to incriminate him, he quietly kills her with no one noticing. Although the BAU manages to reveal his treachery with an incredibly elaborate scheme of their own, Bruno accepts his fate with no shame nor regret, accepting his arrest with the knowledge that the CIA will either kill him or fake his death so that he won't have to go to prison.
    • Agent John Summers, even after his death, sets a plan in motion to bring down the mole in the Agency. Having previously converted Aaliyah Nadir to the CIA and faked her and her childrens' deaths to bring them to America, Summers realized there was a mole in the agency. Knowing he would die soon, Summers ordered a psych eval on himself and the four people it was most likely to be, taking the opportunity to subtly tell Gideon where he put the family. After he stashes them at the docks, Bruno confronts him in his home, yet he dies without revealing the family's location. With the family left behind as bait for Hassan, the BAU manage to utilize the pieces Summers left behind to not only track them down just as fast, but also exploit a loophole Summers knew Hassan would fall into to arrest him despite his diplomatic immunity, also revealing that Bruno was the mole in the process.
  • "Reckoner": Judge Boyd Schuller and Tony Mecacci are two of the few UnSubs to truly beat the BAU. When Judge Schuller was diagnosed with terminal cancer, he chose to exact "true justice" on those who escaped it and hired Tony, a former mob hitman, to carry it out. Schuller and Tony target those who harmed children, subjecting their targets to brutal but ironic fates, such as castrating a child rapist. When the BAU arrives, Tony manages to evade their stakeout and kill Ray without being seen by anyone, and Schuller, predicting when the BAU will figure him out, turns himself in to explain himself. Claiming that Dan Patton, the man who killed his wife in a drunk driving accident, is the final target, the BAU arrives too late to save him from Tony. As they realize too late that Schuller was the true final target, Tony kills Schuller during a transfer, allowing him to evade justice for his crimes, and by the time the BAU leaves Long Island, Tony is still in the wind, only killed when Sean ambushes him after a golf game.
• Curb Your Enthusiasm's "Larry vs. Michael J. Fox": Michael J. Fox was Larry's neighbor upstairs, who, despite escalating a conflict with Larry including purposefully shaking up a soda he gives to Larry, while excusing it through Parkinsons, actually has standards, shown when Larry David continues to escalate the conflict further and was willing to turn the other cheek until Larry drew a Hitler stache on his father-in-law. Then, he turned an entire charity organization against Larry, and nearly got him run out of town. Cunning, and able to use his disability to get the things he want, forcing Larry to donate to a Parkinsons charity, Michael J. Fox was one of the most cunning adversaries had faced.

D - G

• Dallas (2012 revival): John Ross "J.R." Ewing, Jr. is a charming elderly man who helps his son achieve his dream of taking over Southfork ranch and tricks his brother into signing over the property to an investor who's secretly one of J.R.'s associates. Taking over Southfork, J.R. starts to drill for oil on it to secure profits while fooling his brother into thinking he was an invalid to throw him off his scent. Discovering he's dying of cancer, J.R. sets about his "masterpiece" and sets about getting revenge on the family's hated nemesis Cliff Barnes, having a minion steal Cliff's gun and kill him in order to frame Cliff for the crime. A man of total class, J.R. even reveals in his will his genuine love for his family and is happy that his son will be following in his footsteps as a master manipulator in his own right.
• Dalziel and Pascoe's "Death In The Family": Aahil Khan is a single-minded yet warm, paternal entrepreneur. Arriving in Yorkshire with nothing he worked his way up, becoming a successful businessman and a respected figure in Wetherton's Asian community. Capitalizing on his reputation Khan started a Hawallah business — an illegal global money trade that ran explicitly through trust — operating out of his legitimate contacts, planning to save enough money to send his grandchildren to the best schools and guarantee their futures. Tricked into trading money from a bank robbery, Khan's reputation and side business was ruined. Undeterred Khan organised a burglary to reimburse himself with the remaining stolen cash, and when this failed had his sons kidnap the surviving robber Imad Abdullah. His son's attempts to force him into giving them the money failing, taking over Khan apologised to Imad and thanked him for teaching his sons the limits of brute force. In a single conversation Khan convinced Imad into giving him the majority of the money, with Khan allowing him to keep £100,000 and then using his contacts to smuggle Imad abroad to safety, with Khan successfully covering everything up and getting away scot free.
• The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance:
  • Chamberlain skekSil is a Skeksis who appears to be a simpering toady of Emperor skekSo but is far more intelligent and dangerous than he lets on. Coming up with the idea of harvesting Gelflings for essence, skekSil pins the blame for the Skeksis' first victim on her lover Rian to divide the Gelflings, even almost breaking Rian's will with a simple conversation after setting the Hunter skekMal on him and winning the Hunter's respect by revealing he sees power itself as his quarry. After being replaced by the General skekVar, skekSil saves his rival's life and manipulates him into a deathly duel with Rian, later ambushing and murdering him to reclaim his position of power. Long after most Gelflings are gone, skekSil fails in his bid to reclaim power, only to capture one of the final Gelflings to return himself to the good grace of the Skeksis to hatch new plots in his quest for the throne.
  • skekMal the Hunter is one of the few Skeksis to reject the decadent politics of the Emperor's court. Favoring the harsh wilderness outside the castle, the Hunter hunts the most dangerous of quarries, risking his life to corner and outsmart his prey. Called in by the Chamberlain to catch the renegade Rian, the Hunter is only too eager to track Rian and catch him while surviving even the self-sacrifice of Rian's father. Later unleashed again against the Gelflings, skekMal is able to more than match them with his skill and wits, only his Mystic counterpart the Archer overcoming him. Returning at last at the battle of Stone-In-Wood, the Hunter all but overwhelms the Gelfligs himself, boasting that "none can stop the Hunt" and only Archer's sacrifice being able to bring him down for good.
• Davy Crockett (1954): Red Stick is a ruthless, but cunning American Indian leader who opposes western expansion. Unifying multiple tribes, his force proves a match for General Jackson's forces despite inferior weapons by using the frontier's environments to their advantage. When Davy Crockett leads the army to his main camp, Red Stick defeats Davy Crockett in single combat, then orders a strategic retreat, saving many of his men by expertly ordering them to duck at just the right moment to avoid a volley of gunfire. Though many of his followers are killed and several other chiefs accept the US's offer of peace, Red Stick continues the war, evading Major Norton's forces for months by leading them into a swamp where the Indians can easily hide, but Norton's forces catch swamp fever and are unable to fight. Only Davy Crockett and George Russel are able to find Red Stick's encampment, but Russel gets captured. Red Stick nearly burns Russel at the stake, before Crockett challenges him to a duel as per Indian law. In the tomahawk duel, Red Stick gets the upper hand numerous times though skill and guile before eventually losing. Davy Crockett spares him, though, and convinces Red Stick of his own honor and to accept a peace for the good of his tribe.
• Day Break (2006): Defense attorney Barry Colburn is the secret mastermind of a cabal that controls much of Los Angeles behind the scenes. Seeking to exert his vision of justice on the entire city and maintain the system that he built, Colburn and his junior partner city councilman Tobias Booth frame Detective Brad Hopper for the murder of ADA Alberto Garza and blackmail his loved ones to cover up a separate murder tied to Booth. Colburn volunteers as Hopper's defense counsel to better manipulate him, while also planning to assassinate the defiant Judge Nitzberg and several of his colleagues. Hopper is only able to defeat the conspiracy by exploiting a "Groundhog Day" Loop. Despite this, Colburn remains a free man with enough resources to rebound from this setback, and willingly gives his greatest enemy some peace of mind by revealing the identity of his father's killer despite standing nothing to gain from it.
• Dead Man's Gun:
  • "Fool's Gold": Norbert "King Snake" Dautry is a successful Con Man whose Scoundrel Code makes him only target others. Posing as a naive farmer, Dautry buys a salted goldmine from Jack Fleetwood, pretending to discover a rich vein of gold for real, then seemingly allows Fleetwood to trick him into buying back a share of the mine. Aided by his prostitute girlfriend, Dautry tricks Fleetwood into going into debt to raise the money for mining equipment, then tricks the busy Fleetwood into sending him to purchase the equipment. Fleetwood schemes to kill Dautry but discovers that the farm he visited Dautry on was abandoned years ago and that Dautry hasn''t used the money to buy mining equipment. Dautry and his girlfriend board a departing stagecoach, enjoy a drink of champagne, and gloatingly wave goodbye as they leave Fleetwood to the mercy of a cruel Loan Shark.
  • "Buryin' Sam": Andrew starts out working for shady undertakers Sam Roller and Theodore Claxton, who lecture him for not cutting enough costs in building coffins for their customers. When Sam murders Theodore, Andrew sees through Sam's attempts to make people think his victim just left town. He pretends to be fooled and seeks to profit from the situation instead of alerting the sheriff. He conducts a "Scooby-Doo" Hoax to make Sam think Theodore's ghost is seeking revenge. This proves to be too much for Sam's weak heart, just as Andrew anticipated. Andrew takes over the undertaking business, while assuming the personality and methods of his predecessors, and only his unknowing possession of a cursed gun threatens his new position.
• Deadwood: Albert "Al" Swearengen is a respected and feared member of the Deadwood community. The owner of the Gem saloon, Al has been hardened by a rough and brutal life into general misanthropy. Murdering one potential issue, Al disposes of him with the help of Chinese boss Mr. Wu and arranges for the massacre of a prospector family, averting suspicion by blaming the Natives and by offering discounts on alcohol and prostitutes to keep the townspeople sated. Playing in politics to enrich himself and increase his fortunes, Al winds up helping to resist the ruthless George Hearst, forced to kill an innocent prostitute when his own beloved Trixie shoots Hearst and Hearst demands Trixie's death. Years later, a terminally ill Al arranges for Trixie's final happiness and helps to ensure Deadwood's prosperity, meeting his end with dignity and a final private blasphemy.
• The Dead Zone:
  • "Valley of the Shadow": Francis Ritter, believing Johnny Smith to be a true prophet of God, undergoes a mission to force him to accept his responsibility. Kidnapping a child and leaving behind no evidence that Johnny can find, Francis leads him and Sheriff Walt Bannerman on a wild goose chase around the city, staying one step ahead of them despite Johnny's abilities the entire time. Almost managing to kill them with a bomb, Francis also predicts their plans to ambush him with a SWAT team, escaping the ambush but leaving behind clues to draw Johnny to his location. Predicting that Johnny would come alone, Francis leaves behind a second clue for Walt, timing it just right to convince Johnny to take his duty as a prophet seriously before he gets himself gunned down by police after one final prayer.
  • "Ascent": The Guide, heavily implied to be Death itself, is a surprisingly affable entity who seeks the lives of both Walt and Johnny. Having already lost the chance to take Johnny's life once before, the Guide lures him into Walt's consciousness before trapping him there, intending to have them both die at once. Playing the role of Walt's father within his memories and convincing him to Go into the Light. Retaliating against Johnny's changing of Walt's memories with his own mind games, the Guide finally touches Johnny, beginning the process of killing both of them. When Johnny manages to keep resisting, the Guide continues pressuring Walt to give in, only finally ceasing when it becomes clear he's going to lose and silently letting the two of them wake up.
• Defiance:
  • Stahma Tarr is the beautiful, elegant wife of Datak Tarr who hints that she took him as a husband after murdering her original fiancee. Loving Datak for his ruthlessness and ambition, Stahma connives for him to obtain a seat upon the Defiance city council, later murdering her extramarital lover when she threatens Stahma's life with poison. Betraying Datak to leave him in prison and run his criminal enterprise through their son Alak, Stahma repeatedly outplays those around her in an effort to secure her holdings and ambitions while also keeping her family safe.
  • Datak Tarr began only as a "nobody with a wicked smile" who connives and claws his way to power in Defiance. Bringing others into his debt, Datak makes himself a figure of power in the community until he is overthrown by his own wife, the above Stahma. Reflecting on his flaws, Datak grows and even shows contrition to befriend people who want him dead, reconciling with Stahma and their son before rising even higher. When the genocidal Rahm Tak threatens Defiance, Datak "proves" his loyalty by severing his arm in front of an impressed Rahm Tak, only to reveal he hid an explosive in the limb, escaping as Rahm Tak and his men are completely wiped out, saving the city and making himself a hero in the process.
• Designated Survivor: Patrick Lloyd from seasons 1 and 2 leads a disbanded military firm and secretly aims to stage the takeover of the United States of America, using a powerful weapon to attack the Capitol building and killing nearly everyone inside during the State of the Union address. Having used an electronic blueprint of the bombing to prevent such an attack, Lloyd possesses blueprints for other acts of terror and has the terrorist who he paid to commit the initial bombing killed to tie up loose ends. Forcing the FBI director into compliance by kidnapping and threatening his son, Lloyd tries to have the current President Tom Kirkman killed to put his own puppet in office. While some plans fall through, Lloyd manages to steal nuclear codes from the Pentagon to gain the means to hold the US hostage and target other nations. Killing his contacts to avoid capture, Lloyd uses his final moments to threaten to release Sarin gas and kill thousands, only to actually be bluffing about it.
• The Devil Judge: Jung Sun-ah is a wealthy and cunning woman who started as a maid abused by her mother. She plans for Ga-on to meet Yo-han, setting the entire plot in motion. Sun-ah has a habit of manipulating and corrupting people such as Jin-joo, as she exploits Jin-joo's desires for recognition and has her side with the Social Responsibility Foundation, with Jin-joo not knowing how corrupt the organization is. Sun-ah is also willing to get her hands dirty, torturing Yo-han and making him watch as his driver falls to his death, and killing Chairman Seo through a hug. Not without standards, Sun-ah still stops Chairman Seo from sexually harassing a waitress and punishes him for it; Sse also cries out of guilt when she sees a girl she grew somewhat attached to bedridden and unconscious because of her actions, apologizing for her suffering.
• Dexter: Isaak Sirko is an amiable, cultured gangster and a high-ranking figure within the Ukrainian Koshka Brotherhood. Sirko travels to Miami after his friend and lover Viktor does not return, quickly discerning from his travel history that he was murdered. Discovering that Dexter Morgan is the culprit, Sirko proceeds to ruthlessly hunt down his quarry, admitting his respect for Dexter when he proves to be a formidable opponent. When Dexter leads Sirko into a trap, Sirko quickly dispatches the Colombian gangsters Dexter sicced on him, continuing his vendetta against Dexter after he orders his subordinate George to blackmail Detective Quinn so the police's case against Sirko collapses. His prioritization of revenge over profits causes Sirko's bosses to put out a hit on him, but Sirko forces Dexter into an Enemy Mine to help him dispatch the assassins sent after him. Even after he's been mortally wounded, Sirko remains dignified to the end, ultimately parting on good terms with Dexter.
• Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency:
  • Ken Adams evolves from his Season 1 role as a put-upon sidekick to Bart, to a true Diabolical Mastermind in Season 2. Already proving himself to be a clever schemer with helping Bart track down Dirk Gently and using his computer skills to help solve the Spring case, Ken takes advantage of his extended imprisonment at Blackwing to manipulate Hugo Friedkin into using Ken as an asset. Ken tricks Friedkin into steadily promoting him to higher ranks with each passing day as Ken grows knowledgeable about Blackwing's operations and its subjects, and uses his enhanced cunning to reign in the psychotic Osmund Priest and turn the shapeshifter Mona into a pawn. Overcoming his former cowardly traits to stand up to Wendimoor knights and defend Blackwing's base from an assault, Ken finalizes his takeover of the entire organization by banishing Friedkin to die, charismatically winning over the higher-ups to make himself the permanent Director of Blackwing, and convinces even the loose cannon Bart to ally with him once more as Ken makes plans to bring "order" to the world by bringing all the former Blackwing subjects under his banner.
  • Season 1: "Patrick Spring", seemingly a recently-murdered billionaire, is really Zachariah Webb, a brilliant inventor from the 1880s who invented a time machine. When it was taken by the cult-like Men of the Machine, Webb traveled to the future, renaming himself to become a billionaire to gain the resources to fight them. When his wife is killed by the leader of the cultists, Jake Rainey, Spring spends decades plotting his revenge, eventually massacring his way through Rainey's men before gunning him down as well. Focused on protecting his precious daughter Lydia, Spring manipulates the heroes through clues, successfully securing Lydia's safety and completing the time loop.
• Due South: "Gift of the Wheelman": William Porter, an ex-con and aspiring writer, is pushed back to a life of crime when an honest living fails to make him enough money to buy his beloved son Del a Christmas present. Hatching a plan to both ensure Del's financial well-being and to give him a father he can be proud of, Porter joins the dreaded Donnelly brothers on a bank heist as the wheelman, but betrays the brothers and absconds with the money by pulling the bank's fire alarm and tricking an accomplice into tossing him the money in exchange for an unloaded shotgun. Never intending on getting away with his actions, Porter instead sets a trap for the Donnellys, intending to kill both them and himself in a fire while making it seem as though the money was destroyed, leaving Del instructions on how to find the money so he can be financially secure and never have to fear the Donnellys. Although talked out of his plan by Constable Fraser, Porter nevertheless uses the threat of carrying it out to help Fraser and Ray Vecchio subdue the Donnellys before surrendering, his cooperation netting him a light sentence and allowing him to have a good relationship with his son.
• Ellery Queen's "The Adventure of Caesar's Last Sleep": Benny Franks is a polite but ominous prominent organized crime figure who is being investigated by Glory Hound prosecutor Murphy. Franks and his close friend and lieutenant Ralph Caesar arrange for Caesar to get caught committing a crime and make a deal to testify against the mob in exchange for immunity from prosecution. They plan for Caesar to deny that Franks is his boss once he takes the stand and only incriminate minor criminals. When Caesar is murdered, Franks has Ellery kidnapped, questions him, and reveals his plan to humiliate Murphy, desire to avenge Caesar, and his suspicions that Murphy is the killer. While Murphy is innocent, Franks still engineers his downfall by pretending they are friends in front of reporters covering Caesar's murder, tarnishing Murphy's engineered reputation as an anti-crime crusader.
• Everybody Hates Chris' "Everybody Hates the English Teacher": "Ms. Rivera", real name Karen Rodriguez, is a con artist who's been at large for eight years, moonlighting as Tattagla High School's English teacher. When her cover becomes at risk of being blown, Karen disguises herself as a Mormon under the alias of "Perez" and escapes the border. Embezzling a quarter million dollars of the teachers' pension plan, Karen hides out in Utah, coming back to Brooklyn one last time to say goodbye to Chris before moving to Hollywood.
• The Expanse: While Sadavir Errinwright begins as a pawn for Mao, when Mao turns on him, Errinwright shows how skilled a manipulator he is. Errinwright assassinates Mao's Martian contact and starts a war between Earth and Mars to force Mao to work for him. Seeking to use Mao's protomolecule hybrid supersoldiers to give Earth the strength to conquer Mars and remain secure, Errinwright begins a campaign to undermine the Secretary General's anti-war speechwriter Anna, first convincing her that her actions allowed Mars to kill millions in South America and then altering a speech she wrote to call for the annexation of Mars. Errinwright is ultimateley undone when Avasarala accomplishes the almost-impossible task of obtaining a copy of a message between Errinwright and Mao and sends it to Anna. When Errinwright realizes that he's lost, he calmly admits to his crimes and remains dignified as security takes him away.
• Fallen (2006 Miniseries): In this reimagining of The Fallen book series Azazel was one of the leaders of the rebellion against Heaven, desiring the freedom to do whatever he wants in contrast to Lucifer's desire for conquest and envy towards humanity. Freed by Lucifer from his prison to retrieve the Nephilim Aaron Corbett, the "Redeemer", Azazel tracks Aaron down and decieves him into believing that his protector Camael was killed, and gains Aaron's trust. Taking Aaron to Lucifer's temple, Azazel fights Camael and the Powers, and despite being defeated and reimprisoned, is perfectly willing to wait to be free again, stating that he has a lot of patience.
• Fall of Eagles: Otto von Bismarck is the daring Chancellor of Prussia who manipulates France into starting a war so Prussia may crush them. With other wars that Bismarck oversees, as well as his frightening skill in diplomacy, Prussia is able to dominate all of Germany and unify it into a single nation. Making alliances with the Hapsburgs and Romanovs, Bismarck ensures the prosperity of his nation, no matter what ruthless actions he must undertake.
• The Fall of the House of Usher (2023):
  • Verna is the mysterious, supernatural being that haunts the Ushers throughout the story to make them "pay their dues." An ancient entity that offers "deals" to humans that grants them immense power, status and immunity in exchange for something they cherish, Verna presented this very deal to Roderick and Madeline Usher in their youth, promising them total power in exchange for their bloodline one day in the far future. When the time comes, Verna manipulates each and every one of the Usher family to her tune, using their personal flaws and wickedness to trick them into their own deaths, often in brutal, bloody ways. Though considering herself above human morality, Verna nonetheless arranges a particularly agonizing death for the sadistic Freddie Usher, and is sincerely mournful that Lenore, the only genuinely kind Usher, must also die according to the deal she made with Roderick. Verna's machinations result in the complete collapse of the Usher clan and their corrupt corporation, all while she never loses her affable, regal persona.
  • Arthur Pym, "the Pym Reaper", is a hardened attorney who witnessed horrors beyond human comprehension on a global expedition years ago, coming out as one of the only survivors through sheer will. Through Pym's tactical genius, the Ushers have evaded legal consequences for years, Pym always finding loopholes, bribes and blackmail to toss around that has resulted in none of the Ushers facing penalties for their litany of crimes. Far more coldly efficient and professional than the Ushers, Pym expertly tracks down Verna and gets the drop on her, only outdone by Verna because of her supernatural powers. Even when he witnesses what Verna can do, Pym remains calm and holds an intelligent conversation with her, ending with Pym being one of the few, if only, humans to ever reject one of her "deals", remarking that he refuses to let anyone have leverage on him. Pym gracefully turns himself into the police when the Ushers are beaten by Verna, earning the dark woman's respect as Pym silently accepts how his hand plays out.
• Fargo:
  • Season 2: Ohanzee "Hanzee" Dent is the Hypercompetent Sidekick to the entire Gerhardt family, and a seemingly-unassuming Native American mercenary whose unexpected brilliance eventually brings him above both his employers and the Kansas City mafia. Already a ruthlessly efficient tracker and assassin with an unmatched tendency to eliminate every person in his way, Hanzee's tire over mistreatement in his life even in spite of his years in Vietnam spur him to start manipulating every side in the heated conflict brewed from the death of Rye Gerhardt. Hanzee kills his abusive boss Dodd, and — with his last chance to escape the criminal life seemingly dashed — Hanzee effortlessly plays both the Gerhardts and the law enforcement pursuing them against each other, spurring them into a massive shoot-out that decimates both sides as he walks away the only true victor of the conflict. In the end, under the new identity of Moses Tripolgi, Hanzee goes to forge his own successful criminal empire through the years to come, even with the full knowledge that some day, it too will fall.
  • Season 4: Ebal Violante is a wise old criminal who served as the personal advisor and advocate to the Fadda family, whose conflict resolution abilities and sound strategical advice are often ignored or overlooked by the impulsive Fadda leadership. After weeks of watching the Faddas slowly self-destruct due to incompetent leadership, Ebal finally steps up and takes the reigns himself, manipulating rival crime lord Loy Cannon into an alliance that enables Ebal to betray, demonize and execute Josto Fadda, assuming control of the Fadda family for himself in one, swift motion. Promptly screwing Loy over and revealing he's taking half of the Cannon territory as well, Ebal puts Loy in his place as a mere fish in the vast ocean of crime Ebal and his partners in New York occupy, and ends the story completely on top of the Kansas City Mafia, paving the way for decades more professional crime and business to come.
  • Season 5: Ole Munch, aka Oola Moonk, is a mysterious, unflappable hitman who has lived unhappily for centuries as a "sin eater" and hired gun. When he is paid by Roy Tillman to kidnap Dot, Munch realizes quickly that the woman is a "tiger" who is more dangerous than she appears, and gets into an extended chase with her in which Munch kills any witnesses and wounds a cop in his way. Munch tries to cut his losses, take his pay from Roy and leave peacefully, but Roy tries to cheat him out of his cash. Munch responds by declaring a one-man war on the Tillman family, invading their home; killing their minions; and tampering with their organization until Roy finally agrees to pay Munch what he is owed. When Roy's impulsive son Gator steals the money back and kills Munch's maternal figure, Munch calmly stalks and kidnaps Gator, gouges out his eyes as punishment, and then helps Dot dismantle Roy's empire out of mutual respect. Though Munch later tries to challenge Dot to a duel to settle their old debts, he ultimately sets aside his lifetime of malice and misery to indulge in a homecooked meal with Dot's family.
• Farscape:
  • Scorpius was once a nameless child born of a twisted breeding experiment by the Scarrans who schemed his way to freedom and murdered his abusive caretaker Tauza. After finding out about the horrific circumstances of his birth via the rape of his mother by a Scarran soldier, Scorpius dedicated himself to destroying the Scarrans in retribution. Becoming a top officer in the normally fiercely xenophobic Peacekeeper armada, Scorpius tries to hunt down the Wormhole technology in hero John Crichton's head, constantly manipulating others to his ends, using and betraying others in his way and destroying his enemies while the crew of Moya barely remains a step ahead of him, proving himself the single most brilliant and dangerous enemy John has ever faced who will stop at nothing in pursuit of his goals to destroy the Scarrans.
  • Rygel XVI was Dominar of the Hynerian Empire, ruler of over six hundred billion subjects, before he was deposed by his cousin and spent over a hundred cycles in Peacekeeper captivity. He masterminded the prison break aboard Moya, and never lets the others forget it. While he's frequently dismissed by the rest of the crew due to his diminutive stature, relentless greed and self-absorption, Rygel is intelligent, cunning, a competent negotiator and statesman, and can be surprisingly violent when the situation demands it. While he makes no secret of the fact that he's out for himself first, neither will he betray the crew for no reason — as he's smart enough to know they're helpful allies, and he has to be fairly certain he'll actually profit from turning on them. If there's nothing to be gained by working against them, he'll have a flawless scheme up his sleeve to protect them. As the series goes on and Character Development sets in, Rygel lets his genuine care and love for Moya and his friends show more often, but never loses his capacity for brilliant scheming and brutal violence as needed. In "I-Yensch, You-Yensch" he becomes one of very few to cross wits with Scorpius and come out on top.
• FBI: Most Wanted:
  • "Chattaboogie": Evan Greeter is the charming but ruthless heir to "the Board", a Hillbilly Moonshiner syndicate turned drug ring. Betrayed by the others, despite personal assurances they would look after his mother, Evan vows revenge. Whilst patiently spying on the operation, Evan discovers Susan Kleinman's secret partnership with Clayton Smith, laundering gold for The Cartel and was planning to eliminate the others. Assisted only by his girlfriend Maggie, Evan beats Susan to punch by killing the Shallet siblings and kidnapping Smith, tricking the authorities into believing Smith committed the murders. Forcing all he needs out of Smith, Evan stages his suicide, then outsmarts and kills the remaining board member Allen and his operatives. Stealing the latest gold shipment, Evan traps Susan, calling her out for her betrayal and revealing his plans to take over running both operations. In spite of being caught by the FBI, Evan has the foresight to have already sent his mother and her boyfriend off to an international cruise with a stolen fortune, ensuring them luxury for the rest of their lives.
  • "Iron Pipeline": Joshua Fogelman was an ordinary suburban family man, until his nine-year-old daughter Mya was murdered in a mass shooting. Transformed into "a Man on fire" Joshua threw himself into ensuring this could never happen again. When his media campaign failed, Joshua turned to a more audacious plan. Tracking down an illegal gun dealer, Joshua bought an AR-15 and after doing his research travelled to a convention for the North-Eastern Rifle Federation. Patiently waiting for his opportunity, he infiltrated the convention and kidnaped the president at gunpoint, planning to force him to broadcast a picture of what the gunman did to Mya at the convention and force the members to confront the carnage they helped enable. Discovering the FBI had cancelled the convention and cornered by the feds, coming up with a a new plan on the spot, Joshua instead forcing him to upload the footage onto their social media feed. Succeeding, he surrendered finally letting the grief of his daughter’s death catch up with him.
• Flash Gordon (2007) Assassin: The unnamed "Patriot" and titular assassin is a minion of Ming and Rankol tasked with stealing all knowledge of the portals between Earth and Mongo from Earth. To do this, he must kill and steal the minds of the colleagues of Dr. Laurence Gordon, Flash's father. Given experimental holographic disguise technology, the Patriot arrives on Earth disguised as Dr. Gordon, and uses charm and their holographic tech to get close to two of their three targets, then kills them with a device that drains knowledge from a brain. They further destroy knowledge of the other dimension by infiltrating and bombing one of the scientists’ workplaces, and when caught by Flash and the heroes, they escape by shifting back into Flash's father so Flash hesitates to shoot them. Chasing their final target in Dr. Hans Zarkov, the Patriot spies on them and learns their escape plan disguised as a homeless man, plants a bomb at Zarkov's lab that Flash and Baylin just barely disarm, and approaches Zarkov and Dale pretending to be Flash. When Dale sees through his disguise and a fight breaks out, the Patriot battles and defeats Baylin, only being killed by Dale grabbing a gun and seeing through their disguise again. Calm, ruthless, and implied to be working for Ming to ensure his family’s safety, the Patriot proved far more than the Faceless Mook he appeared to be.
• Forever Knight: The sire of Nicholas Knight, Lucien LaCroix was a brilliant Roman general turned into a vampire by his own daughter Divia. Horrified at the corruption Divia succumbed to, with her even suggesting they become lovers, LaCroix seemingly destroyed and entombed her. Becoming a brilliant, dangerous vampire, LaCroix once arranged for Nick to be hanged by peasants to trick him into succumbing to his killer instinct once Nick renounced his old ways. In the present, LaCroix frequently manipulates Nick and all around him, even having his own radio show as the Night Crawler where he frequently talks about his philosophies and his schemes. Always charismatic and compelling, LaCroix also admits to certain standards and always maintains his complex relationship with Nicholas.
• Fringe: William Bell is a brilliant scientist who founded the corporation, Massive Dynamic, and is also revealed to be backing the terrorist organization ZFT, using them to test Olivia Dunham into activating her powers to enter the Alternate Universe he resides where he tells her of the upcoming catastrophe her universe will face before sending her back. When Olivia and Walter Bishop arrives in the alternate universe again William Bell would save them and Peter Bishop and bring them back to their universe by sacrificing himself. Though seemingly dead, William Bell had his soul stored inside a bell which possessed Olivia when she activates it, whom he brokers a deal with Walter to return Olivia's body if they transfer his conscious to a computer; he lied about the latter working revealing that he "hates goodbyes". Alive again in an alternate timeline, William would enact his most ingenious and diabolical plan of destroying both Walter's and the alternate universes to create his own universe using Olivia as his catalyst, a plan that nearly succeeds if not for his equally brilliant friend Walter intervening. Always alternating between the Fringe divisions greatest ally to most dangerous enemy, William Bell made his mark as the series' most morally ambiguous yet brilliantly charming character.
• Future Man:
  • Ty-Anne is an alternate reality clone of Tiger that joins the Pointed Circle after discovering Stu Camilo’s true monstrosity and his sinister plans for humanity. She climbs up to the ranks to becoming the resistance’s leader, adopting the moniker "Achilles", hiding her role from Stu by acting like an obnoxious spoiled brat in front of him. Upon discovering Stu’s weakness being Josh, she has Dr. Athena kidnap multiple Joshes from different realities to forcibly infiltrate Stu’s mainframe before asking Josh Futterman herself to voluntarily sacrifice himself to Stu, when the other attempts failed. When told about the failures of her plans and another weak spot from Josh, Wolf, and Tiger, Ty-Anne changes her plans by taking Tiger’s spot at Stu’s side to distract him while she has the trio destroy Stu’s weakness, killing him for good.
  • Susan is the bombastic and charismatic host of the Diecathlon who arranges Josh, Tiger, and Wolf to be captured in season 2 and brought before him to interrogate. Susan attempts to have them kill each other before deciding to have them compete in the Diecathlon, when they Take a Third Option and try killing themselves. When the trio escapes from the Diecathlon in season 3, Susan tries to side with them upon discovering his rival’s plan to usurp Susan's position as host, force him to compete, and kill his wife and daughter. Susan would succeeded in doing so by revealing Osama bin Laden’s attempts to manipulate Josh into taking him back to Haven where he has Josh kill Bin Laden before instructing Josh and the other two to infiltrate Haven where Susan plans to destroy Haven to repair the time-space continuum that’s being damaged. Upon discovering the source of Haven located in the year 1999 at Iowa State University, Susan fends off Mathers' forces to give the trio time to destroy the source. After being captured by Mathers, Susan, knowing that Mathers would try to kill his family, switched the cubes—keeping his family safe—before unleashing his daughter on Mathers and killing her, before parting ways with the trio after they succeed in saving the world.
• Galavant: Madalena was a peasant woman and Galavant's girlfriend who dumped him to marry King Richard and become his queen. Successfully collaborating with Richard in luring Galavant into a trap on the pretense that she’s Richard's prisoner, she overthrows Richard with the help of his treacherous brother Kingsley, only to stab Kingsley In the Back, becoming the sole monarch of Valencia. When she learns of Galavant, Richard, and co. escaping her imprisonment and their whereabouts, she uses her vast army to declare war on them, while also obtaining the magical powers of the Dark Dark Evil Ways to ensure her victory. Only loosing to Richard's Sword of the One True King, Madalena never looses her dark charm and only expands her ambitions to conquer the rest of the world, becoming the apprentice of the Dark Evil Lord to master her powers boldly claiming that nothing will stop her now.
• GARO: Makai Senki: Sigma Fudo, aka "The Man in the Red Mask", was once a Makai Priest who was passed up for inheriting the title of "Flash Knight LORD" in favor of his twin brother Leo. Believing Alchemy and Priests were more suited to protecting humanity rather than Knights, Sigma secretly allies with the Horrors, crafting powerful tools and attacks Makai Knights to brand them with the Seal of Destruction as part of a plan to assimilate them into a powerful Horror. Luring the Makai Order into his trap, Sigma nearly erases them alongside with the Horrors to bring about his desired utopia, letting nothing stand in the face of his goal for world peace.
• The George Lopez Show's "George Decides to Sta-Local Where it's Familia": Enrique Vega is a soft-spoken, intelligent businessman who buys out Powers Aviation and intends to relocate their factory to Mexico to cut costs. Though George tries to confront Vega over the loss of jobs this will cost, Vega quickly charms and seduces George into instead accepting a job offer, nonetheless playing along with amusement at George's attempt to look defiant for his employees. When Vega learns that George has turned on him and allied with the factory workers for a lock-in, Vega strikes a deal with the city's mayor to keep the factory open in exchange for giving Vega immense tax exemptions, Vega letting George have the credit for "saving" the factory and promoting the man for his tenacity and skill while Vega himself continues to profit from his enterprises.
• Get Smart: Donald Snead and Emily Neal are two Affably Evil Gadgeteer Genius KAOS operatives who specialize in using a wide-ranging series of impressive gadgets (battery-draining lipstick, sleeping foot powder, electrified telephones, etc.) to defeat their enemies with fake accidents. They nearly rig the Olympics by sabotaging or incapacitating all of the best U.S. athletes and are only stymied by Spanner in the Works Hymie, a robotic super athlete who is immune to most of their tricks and fills in for the hurt athletes. Even then, they nearly deactivate Hymie in time to cost him a deciding race, failing by mere seconds. They take their loss philosophically, but anticipate that their bosses will have a You Have Failed Me reaction and gracefully choose to retire from espionage and get away from both sides, while also acting on their newfound feelings for each other.
• Girl Gun Lady: Matsuko Kadowaki was once Lady Commander Amatsu, who led her team to victory in the previous Girl Gun Fight and was made human as a result. After her teammates were erased from the real world, Matsuko swore revenge on the GGL's game master and sought to save her team. Reentering the fight as a player for Bravo Tango, Matsuko quickly proves herself far more competent than her Lady Commander, leading her team to the top of the leaderboard through her strategy and combat prowess. After Alpha Tango wins the Girl Gun Fight, Matsuko reveals the truth to Koharu and enlists the help of her and the other surviving players to stop the game master. During the victory ceremony, Matsuko has Alice kill her so she can retrieve the Lady Armor from the real world, enabling Koharu to use it to kill the game master and undo all the changes made by the Girl Gun system. Though this led to her being erased, Matsuko died fully content that her teammates and everyone else would be saved.
• The Glory: Moon Dong-eun has long plotted revenge against her bullies in high school. Her plan is elaborate, playing out over 16 episodes, and relies on her knowledge of her bullies and being able to predict their behavior. She begins by manipulating the weakest bully Son Myeong-o into attempting to extort knowledge of the murder Alpha Bitch Park Yeon-jin committed in high school. Next, she sets herself up as an elementary school teacher in Park Yeon-jin's daughter Ha Ye-sol's class and makes false threats against Ye-sol to trigger her mother's anxiety. When Yeon-jin hires Dong-eun's estranged and abusive mother Jung Mi-hee, who had previously sold Dong-eun out for some quick cash, to harass Dong-eun and spread rumors about her, Dong-eun provokes her into setting fire to their apartment. She then commits her mother to a mental hospital. She is then free to enact the final steps of her plan against her bullies. Overall, she displays cunning, takes an interest in learning Go and quickly becomes very good at it, and remarks how she merely set up the board and watched as her bullies destroyed themselves. Despite her dirty tactics and willingness to break innumerable laws, she is able to build a circle of friends who aid her in her revenge.
• The Good Guys:
  • "Pilot": Pedro is the CIA-trained second best hired assassin in the world. The Cartel hires him to kill a thief and retrieve some stolen money. Pedro effortlessly disables the alarm system of the thief's plastic surgeon, and intimidates him into giving up the pawn shop owner with the bag of money. Pedro demonstrates superb gun-slinging skills when he runs across Dan and Jack, but also doesn't go out of his way to try and kill him. He is frustrated but professional, at least until they threaten his sons, when his boss hires his hated rival, the best assassin in the world to join the hunt. He helps Jack save an innocent hostage during the climactic shootout, then gets into a Mexican Standoff with the best assassin for several minutes before killing his rival and claiming the title of best assassin. He peacefully surrenders to the police but then uses his CIA contacts to make them release him. Pedro then returns to his sons and sends Jack and Dan a letter complimenting their bravery and skills.
  • "Vacation": Beau Teauge is a prison warden who breaks convicts out of prison for money, bribing guards and other inmates, arranging for transfers that can be ambushed by his clients, and more. Even when the protagonists blunder into his operation by luck, he calmly lies to Lt. Ruiz and doesn't abandon the operation to avoid the risks. Teague is affable toward his clients and defiant in the face of arrest, but he's also a ruthless man who's willing to get the guards under his command injured or worse to facilitate his racket. Even when Dan and Jack bust his clients, Teague is poised to stay beneath suspicion until he's caught spending marked money that only got put into circulation by accident due to Dan's unpredictable and poorly thought-out antics.
  • "Common Enemies": Roland the Tech Bandit is a dedicated food blogger who finances his passion by stealing software from tech companies. He uses his acrobatic skills to break into highly secure corporate buildings without leaving a trace. When Dan and Jack catch him, he takes it with grave and amusement while saying that he's glad that it wasn't a Jerkass whose been after him for years who finally closed the case. Roland is released from jail to help rescue Liz and Ruiz from a hostage situation, and he succeeds in saving the day but then promptly escapes despite his earlier promise not to. The episode ends with Roland preparing for his next heist and his next restaurant review, while being accompanied by a filmmaker who originally set out to make a documentary about his pursuers but finds Roland more interesting.
  • "Little Things": Alfredo and Tico are two Mexican cartel members with a Start My Own scheme. They fake their own deaths and go to America, purchasing fake identities to use in their drug empire. Alfredo and Tico kill everyone who encounters them at this point in their plan to eliminate threats of exposure, but they generally do so with regret and introspection. At one point, Alfredo gives one man they plan to kill a wad of money first to Let Them Die Happy. The two also maintain a good Villainous Friendship and take their arrest with disappointment but dignity.
  • "The Getaway": Mild-mannered Carson Pulaski is roped into a criminal career by his domineering wife Marion. Carson steals their biggest haul after $2 million armored car robbery, apologetically running out on Marion and her brother Tyler. He uses the money to finance an honest life as the owner of a stylish motel. Months later, Jack visits his motel and becomes suspicious of Carson's past despite his pleasant nature. Carson does a good job of lying to Jack, but Jack’s background check inadvertently summons Tyler and Marion, who take Jack, Dan, and Carson prisoner. Carson tries to convince Marion and Tyler to spare the two detectives and two join him as honest hotelier but fails. He says a dignified goodbye to the hotel he built as Marion prepares to kill him, but Jack and Dan save him by capturing Marion and Tyler. Carson almost escapes in the confusion, but when arriving cops arrest him for the armored car robbery, he shows no malice toward Jack for causing this, and says he hopes Jack enjoyed staying at his motel.
  • "Cop Killer": Dekker is a blind veteran and owner of a store that sells military-grade weapons. His best clients are dangerous criminals who he maintains Villainous Friendships and recognizes by voice. He willingly helps in their efforts to kill police informant Julius Grant. He remains unworried and careful when being questioned by the police and turns their visits to his advantage by training his preteen granddaughter and shop assistant to spy on visitors who venture out of his earshot. Through this strategy, he ends up learning far more information from Dan and Jack then they do from him, passes this information on to his customers. At the end of the episode, he remains free and in business even after Jack and Dan bust his customers.
• The Good Place:
  • Michael is a deceitful yet affable demon who arranges for a group of souls to psychologically torture each other in the supposed Good Place. After the group figures out Michael's ploy, Michael erases their minds several times over before joining forces with them to scheme against the smug Vicky after she blackmails him into relinquishing his power. Michael manipulates his demon brethren into thinking that the group has escaped while framing Vicky for his failures, tricking the demons into leaving. While Michael's intentions were initially self-serving, he grows to genuinely care for the group and manipulates events to ensure that the protagonists and many others are reformed enough to enter the Good Place, improving the Afterlife system and the Good Place upon discovering their flaws and persuades his former allies into helping him stop Gen from erasing all of existence, before reincarnating himself as a mortal human after accomplishing everything he desired.
  • Season 4: Bad Janet is the Bad Place's version of Janet who, after being rebooted 40 million times by Shawn, is able to perfectly imitate a Good Janet, and swaps places with her with no one in the Soul Squad being any the wiser. She spends months undermining the experiment in subtle ways, such as making the other humans doubt Eleanor's leadership skills and sabotaging attempts at group bonding activities. After being exposed as an impostor, Michael decides to release her after giving her his manifesto, which she reads and finds herself agreeing with Michael's points. When the Earth is faced with the risk of being rebooted by the judge, she gathers an army of Good, Bad, Neutral, and Disco Janets to help hide the Earth-rebooting remote. Even as her fellow Janets are marbleized, she refuses to give it up, defiantly farting in the Judge's direction when it becomes her turn to meet the same fate.
• The Good Wife:
  • Kalinda Sharma, born Leela Tahiri, is Lockhart/Gardner’s investigator and plays a vital role in the vast majority of the cases the firm wins. Kalinda excels in using her charm, sexuality and acting skills to gain access to crime scenes, uncover evidence and track down witnesses. While showing Undying Loyalty to her friends, Kalinda is absolutely ruthless towards her enemies. She frames Blake Calamar for having an affair with drug kingpin Lemond Bishop’s wife, and Damien Boyle for having betrayed his former clients in the mob, forcing both men to leave town or be killed, and she is heavily implied to have murdered her abusive husband Nick Savarese. When Alicia Florrick and Cary Agos leave Lockhart/Gardner to form their own firm, Kalinda expertly plays both sides, using Cary’s interest in hiring her to get a pay raise from Lockhart/Gardner, and manipulating Cary’s feelings for her to gain important information about Florrick/Agos. Kalinda brings about Bishop’s downfall by stealing the evidence needed to put him in prison from his computer, accomplishing in a matter of days what the authorities had failed to do for years, before calmly skipping town to avoid retribution. Unmatched in her field, Kalinda proves her worth time and time again as one of Lockhart/Gardner’s most valuable employees, arguably even more so than their lawyers.
  • Lemond Bishop is Chicago’s top drug kingpin and a top client of Lockhart/Gardner and later Florrick/Agos. A suave and eloquent man, Bishop has used his charisma and intelligence to remain one step ahead of the authorities for years, while establishing a chain of successful legitimate businesses with his drug money and making plans to retire from the game altogether. When Bishop suspects that there is a leak in Florrick/Agos, he cunningly feeds the mole and correctly determines that Alicia’s phone is being tapped. Hiding a terrifying ruthlessness beneath his friendly demeanour, Bishop is implied to have ordered his wife’s death while making it look like a drug overdose to prevent her from gaining custody of their son in their divorce, intimidates witnesses, including his own sister, and is the only person shown to be capable of genuinely frightening Kalinda Sharma. When he is finally arrested, Bishop’s only concern is that his son would have to witness this, as Bishop has endeavoured to shield him from his criminal life.
  • Louis Canning is one of Lockhart/Gardner’s most frequent and brilliant adversaries. Canning defends pharmaceutical corporations from lawsuits for developing unsafe medicines, and employs many dirty tactics in court, his favorite of which is to milk his tardive dyskinesia for sympathy from judges and juries. In his first appearance, despite being outargued in court, Canning gets the last laugh when he reveals that Lockhart/Gardner had underestimated the value of their case, allowing him to negotiate a settlement of less than half the lawsuit’s worth. Canning later teams up with Patti Nyholm to distract Lockhart/Gardner with a Frivolous Lawsuit and steal their top client, driving the firm into bankruptcy and almost putting them out of business altogether. Canning also schemes with David Lee to merge his firm with Lockhart/Gardner and ruin Diane’s attempts to merge with Florrick/Agos, ultimately driving Diane out of her own firm. Effortlessly charming and a loving family man outside of his work, Canning’s skill as an attorney is matched only by his wit and unfailing respect for Alicia’s own skills.
  • Patti Nyholm is a devious and brilliant lawyer opposed to Lockhart/Gardner. A highly skilled advocate capable of going toe-to-toe with Will Gardner in court, Patti’s unsavory clients include insurance companies and hospitals refusing to provide desperately needed emergency medical care, and she often uses stall tactics to pressure the opposition in these time-sensitive cases. When fired by her firm, Patti uses Lockhart/Gardner to bring a lawsuit against them, illegally feeding Lockhart/Gardner inside information on active cases in order to force her firm to give her job back. She is then able to return armed with inside information on future cases against Lockhart/Gardner, which Will cannot call her out for illegally using without himself admitting to perjury and risking his own disbarment. Patti later teams up with Louis Canning to steal Lockhart/Gardner’s top client. Despite appearing in only five episodes, Patti remains one of Lockhart/Gardner’s most memorable and formidable opponents.
• Grimm:
  • Captain Sean Renard, officially an upstanding officer of the law and Nick's charismatic boss, is secretly the half-Zauberbiest bastard son of King Frederick Renard of the House of Kronenberg. Forced to flee for his life as a child, Renard exploited his unique connections to eventually become de facto overlord of Portland. A calculating mastermind, natural leader and exemplary warrior, Renard is also a senior figure in the Laufer's fight against the Royals, possessing connections the other leaders can only dream of, whilst fooling the royals into believing he's one of them. Constantly working, be it in police business, outplaying rivals at international intrigue or protecting his city, Renard never misses an opportunity he can exploit. Amongst his successes, he plants a spy within his families own castle; assassinates his brother Prince Eric on his own turf; sets up an alliance with other resistance leaders beneath the Royals' noses; and temporarily become mayor of Portland. His Machiavellianism tempered by genuine standards and a protective nature, Renard stands out both as one of Nick's greatest enemies and his most capable allies.
  • Prince Viktor Beckendorf, the second Crown Prince of the House of Kronenberg, is the main antagonist of Season 3 and the first half of season 4. A ruthless yet pragmatic, suave, single-minded professional, Viktor will do anything to increase the family's powerbase, with him responsible for rigging elections, overseeing the Verrat and infiltrating governments and intelligence agencies. Assigned to investigate Prince Eric’s assassination Viktor was the only one to figure out Sean was responsible. Ordered by the King to kidnap Sean's daughter Diana to be the family's heir or else face an agonizing death, Viktor manages to expose and break Sean's spy, tracking them across the world, and even after losing Diana manipulates Adalind into stripping Nick of his powers. Deducing he had been tricked and who really had her, he immediately got back to tracking Diana, successfully turning one of Sean's agents. Finally sick of his uncle's ill gratitude and threats, Viktor conspired with the Laufer to engineer his demise leaving himself King. Proving to be the most capable Royal, Viktor was the only recurring antagonist to end their run in victory.
  • "Plumed Serpent": Ariel Eberhart is a playful, alluring Dämonfeuer and the daughter of the slowly dying Fred Eberhart, a welder turned copper thief. Learning that Detective Nick Burkhardt is a Grimm investigating her father's involvement in a homicide, Ariel devises a plan to give her father an honorable death. She ambushes Nick when he follows her, tearing his shirt and answering his phone to trick his girlfriend Juliette into thinking he's cheating just to mess with them. The next night, Ariel tricks Nick to going to her house, kidnaps Juliette and brings her to her father's lair, thus forcing Nick to face her father in combat to the death to save Juliette and give her father a chance at dying honorably in accordance with their culture. When Nick emerges the victor, Ariel assures her father he fought well and causes an explosion, faking her death and leaving for parts unknown.
  • "The Good Soldier": Colonel Adam Desai blamed himself for being unable to achieve justice for Frankie Gonzales after she was gang-raped by four PMCs. Learning he was dying from cancer, Desai begins to hunt down and kill the four men responsible, luring one into his house by breaking his medals before stabbing him. When Portland police contact him about the rape, Desai tells them all he knows while tricking them into believing he's in the hospital while he's really in Portland. When one of the other contractors is killed along with his wife and Frankie is arrested, she calls Desai, who allows the Portland police to track his call, then confronts the last remaining rapist and reveals that he knows that he killed the contractor and his wife before engaging in a fight to the death. In the end, Desai deliberately leaves himself open for a killing blow, declaring that "You can't arrest him for what he did to Frankie, but you can for what he did to me." Colonel Desai is shown to be the cleverest Manticore depicted in the show and meets his end on his terms.