Characters / Big Mouth Main Characters

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Unmarked Spoilers.

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In General

L-R, T-B: Nick, Missy, Jay, Matthew, Andrew, Jessi

• Age-Appropriate Angst: They're 13 and puberty is hitting them in different ways, which leads to feelings of isolation.
• Breaking the Fellowship: At the start of Season 1, they're a closely-knit group of friends. By the end of Season 3, they've all gone though a lot of strife and part ways. Thankfully most of them reconcile across Season 4, and all of them (minus Jay), get back together to help Nick in the season finale.
• Color-Coded Characters:
  • Nick is Blue.
  • Andrew is Green.
  • Jessi is Red.
  • Jay is Black.
  • Missy is Yellow.
  • Matthew is Gold.
• Establishing Character Moment: The first 3 minutes of the first episode showcases all of their most apparent traits as they're all watching a video about human anatomy and puberty in class.
  • Andrew is utterly confused upon seeing how the female body works as he remarks that he thought girls only had vaginas, thus showing his cluelessness and then he is visited very soon by Maury and urging him to go jerk off, which also shows that he's going through puberty, and thus is riddled with hormones that he can't control.
  • Nick is just as confused as Andrew is over the female anatomy but nonetheless absorbs the new information a lot easier which highlights that he's less of a wreck than Andrew is but has the same curiosities.
  • Jessi's awareness and feminism is the first thing about her that shows as she remarks on the Double Standard in regards to male and female puberty with how for boys it's portrayed as awesome, but for girls it's portrayed as painful and unpleasant, while also saying women need equal pay.
  • Jay responds to Jessi's statement by repeating what his sexist, corrupt father told him about women and maternity leave, which shows how he's a product of his environment and made him something of a misogynist.
  • Matthew makes sure to throw a sharp quip at Jay after overhearing his and Jessi's conversation, which demonstrates that he is quickwitted and a smartass to his peers.
  • As Andrew gets up to leave to the bathroom, Missy kindly offers to take notes for him while he's away, showcasing her as a Nice Girl.
• Four-Philosophy Ensemble: Jessi is the Cynic, Missy is the Optimist, Nick is the Realist, Jay is Apathetic and Andrew is Conflicted.
• Freudian Trio: The three boys, Jay (id), Nick (ego), and Andrew (superego).
• Hormone-Addled Teenager: All of them. Justified and fairly realistically portrayed as they're all growing out of their preteens and into their teens as they struggle with keeping their urges in control, feel a lot of new, embarrassing feelings about themselves, their classmates and other things that they don't understand but can't ignore and growing awareness and curiosities of their changing bodies and even their sexualities as their hormone monsters guide them through all of these things. Going through changes indeed.
• Kids Are Cruel: They've all had their nasty moments and are prone to lashing out at people and even their parents (whether they deserve it or not) since they are currently quite hormonal and going through puberty, although Missy is indefinitely the nicest one who hasn't really lashed out at anyone who doesn't deserve it.
• Odd Friendship: Between Missy and Jay. Missy is a nerdy nice girl that is still shy about sex, while Jay is an overactive Dirty Kid with bad grades. Despite this, the two find a shared interest in writing fanfiction and become close friends, with Missy being the first person Jay comes out to.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Nick and Andrew are definitely the Blue Oni's to Jay's Red Oni, although together it's often Nick who can play the Red Oni to Andrew's Blue Oni. Whereas Missy is definitely the Blue Oni to Jessi's Red Oni.
• True Companions: Subverted to a realistic degree. They're all friends and get along pretty well with each other but they're not immune to drama and getting into real arguments that can strain their friendship. However, they do always find a way to forgive each other and find an understanding to get back in each other's good graces. At least until "Super Mouth" where all the drama puts far too much strain on each of them that they all part on less than good terms. Although the relationships are tense across Season 4, they eventually make-up and get together to help Nick in a crucial moment.

Nick Birch

Nicholas "Nick" Arsenio Birch

"I think I thought I was, like, a big dick boy, but I think I was just being a dick."

Voiced By: Nick Kroll

"Everything is embarrassing!"

The main character. Nick is the youngest member of the group and still hasn't reached puberty, feeling somewhat left out. He is level-headed, intelligent and witty, however, he does has a tendency to be a jerk sometimes, especially in relation to Andrew.

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• Age-Appropriate Angst: Nick struggles with being the only one in his group who hasn't reached puberty, and feels like a little kid compared to them.
• All for Nothing:
  • In the first season finale, Nick finally learns that he will grow and get to puberty when the time comes, and that he shouldn't push himself to grow up. By the end of the episode however, he has entered puberty, very much against his will.
  • Kissing Missy. Not only do they not pursue a relationship together due to lack of chemistry, but he loses Andrew's friendship.
  • Nick enrols in a separate high school to Andrew and the other kids because he was hoping to score with Dani, but not only did Dani already have a boyfriend but the two of them ultimately didn't have any sexual chemistry. The result leaves Nick all alone in a new school.
• Amicable Exes:
  • With Jessi. They dated mostly for peer pressure, rather than because they wanted to date. They had a fight and broke up, with Nick eventually developing entitled rage issues when Jessi rebuffs him in Season 5, but ultimately they settled their issues and are now this.
  • A more minor example with Gina. While they certainly ended things on a bad note, they at least manage to exchange a "happy Valentine's day" during the Valentine's Day special.
• Annoying Younger Sibling: Both Judd and Leah appear to see him as this to some degree, though the latter is kind to him upon occasion.
• Author Avatar: Nick is not only based on Kroll's own childhood and pubescent years, but is even voiced by him.
• The Baby of the Bunch: Nick is twelve, while the rest of the main characters are all stated to be thirteen. This is accentuated by his short stature, which often makes him look far younger than his peers regardless of age group.
• Better as Friends: What Nick and Jessi ultimately decide on, although they did have a bit of a major falling out before burying the hatchet.
• Chivalrous Pervert: While he is at first attracted to Gina because of her boobs, he eventually learns that it's fine to admire the female body so long as he respects the person that body belongs to. Nick then spends time getting to know Gina, and admits that despite the obvious physical attraction, he also genuinely enjoys her company.
• Companion Cube: In early season three, Nick's new smartphone "Cellsea". "She" seems as real to him as the Hormone Monsters and speaks to him as if she were his girlfriend. A toxic girlfriend!
• Corrupt the Cutie: His peers' main goal is to pressure him into engaging in risky behavior in order to toughen him up, often in deceivingly childlike ways like forcing him to consume drugs disguised as gummy bears.
• Did Not Get the Girl: Despite plenty of teasing that Nick and Jessi would eventually get back together, it ultimately ends with Nick realising that he should give up chasing her.
• Double Standard: Nick touches Gina's boobs when they make out at one point. While Nick receives praise from all the men in their class, Gina is slut shamed for letting a guy touch her boob. Gina calls him out on it.
• Dreadful Musician: He cannot carry a tune to appease anybody, as shown in "Poop Madness" and "Lovebugs".
• Early Personality Signs: "The Planned Parenthood Show" shows an infant Nick doing stand-up to foreshadow his interest in comedy. However, this may not be true to his real infancy, as Elliot's flashback was drug-influenced.
• Embarrassing Middle Name: Nicholas Arsenio Birch.
• Embarrassing Nickname: He doesn't seem to like it when his mother calls him "Nickie" in front of his friends.
• Even the Guys Want Him: Andrew has a brief crush on him while questioning his sexuality. After Nick makes a reading of Gustavo's monologue at the end of "Girls Feel Horny Too", Andrew is seen as infatuated as all the girls by him. Matthew admits Nick has his charms too.
• Fatal Flaw: The necessity to prove himself to others. He constantly tries to find ways to compensate for his little dick by doing manly things or bragging about things, which in the show's words makes him feel like a Big Dick Kid. This causes his relationship with Gina to fall out as well as him to try drugs with Jessi.
  • His arrogance and self-centeredness. This occasionally affects his friendship with the socially-awkward Andrew.
• Future Me Scares Me: Nick Starr, a borderline sociopathic game show host 32 years into the future, who's wealthy, successfull and confident - and also completely alone, having alienated his family and friends due to a fear of intimacy and emotional pain. As season 4 reveals, Starr was never real, he's simply a psychological projection of Nick's own fears and self-loathing. When Starr takes over Nick's body in the finale, Nick manages to defeat him by dealing with his emotional issues rather than supressing them
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Andrew since elementary school. Even though they can get into fights, they always end up burying the hatchet. While their fight in the Season 3 finale ends their friendship, in Season 4 they've made up.
• Ink-Suit Actor: Resembles a 13-year-old Nick Kroll.
• In Touch with His Feminine Side: Somewhat downplayed, especially compared to his father. Nick's definitely not feminine despite being made fun of for having 'boobs' in "My Furry Valentine" due to his nipples being oddly sore, but Nick is far more sensitive compared to Andrew and Jay, and isn't above actually spending time with women and listening to what they have to say. While he still makes mistakes with girls like most boys his age, he still knows how to talk to them. He also lacks aggression unlike Andrew and Jay, and is much more emotionally mature than they are by a landslide. However, he seems to be trying to stray away from this in an attempt to feel like a 'big dick boi'.
• Irishman and a Jew: Having a Scottish grandfather makes Nick an honorary Irishman to Andrew and Jessi's Jews.
• It's All About Me: He can become like this in his worst moments, being ignorant about other's feelings and putting himself first. But he does come out of it and apologize (With Gina does not work because he does not take responsibility. With Jay does, because he is genuinely sorry. He does take responsibility with Andrew, but it is just not enough for Andrew to forgive him.)
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Downplayed. He is somewhat self-centered and thinks of himself as the leader/superior (at one point, he refers to himself as an Alpha and to Andrew and Missy as Betas) and he can put his own wants in front of others' very easily, but most of that due more to immaturity and he sticks by his friends no matter what.
• Kidanova: Despite his awkwardness and being a late bloomer, he's still attracted a few girls, including Jessi (with whom he dated for peer pressure), Roland (who called him out for New York), and Tellulah (an older girl who got interested in him). At one point, Andrew also thinks that Nick would be the perfect man for him and thinks to have fallen for him. It is ultimately defied, however, as the majority of his love interests realize they are not actually attracted to him at all, and just find his humor and personality fun to be around. Gina and Missy seem to be the only exceptions, with it ambiguous on Gina's end as to whether she was actually attracted to him, or was just trying to rebound after Charles.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • When Nick tries to apologize to Andrew for kissing Missy, he's shocked to learn that not only is Andrew not going to summer camp with him, but also no longer considers him his best friend. It took them the Season 4 episode "Poop Madness" to come back to one another.
  • Also, he does feel awful for being rude and cruel with Jay while he was staying with him, and apologizes.
  • In Season 5, he has a Heel Realization after confronting Nick Kroll at the Resources Department and feels awful about how acted in his hate-fueled spiral. He thanks Andrew for coming to save him and apologizes to Jessi for acting entitled.
• The Napoleon: Nick is self-conscious about his height and regularly tries to prove himself at pretty much anything. His "Big Dick Boi" super alter-ego plays on this.
• Never My Fault:
  • Defied by Gina. He doesn't take responsibility for bragging about touching her boobs, mostly because it was Jessi telling Devin, who then proceeded to slut shame Gina. Gina calls him out on it, and states that he shouldn't have told anyone in the first place.
  • Nick gets called out on this by his own voice actor in the Season 5 finale. Nick Kroll points out that the Hormone Monsters, Shame Wizards, Love Bugs and Hate Worms are all just abstract manifestations of his own psyche rather than outside influences, so he should get a grip on them rather than pass the blame.
• No Indoor Voice: He couldn't keep his mouth shut while he was ogling Gina's breasts. She heard him and it made her feel insecure about herself.
• Older Than They Look: Nick is 13, but by looking at the picture above, he passes for a 5-year-old, with the only distinguishing pubertal trait of his being his deep voice. Justified by him being a late bloomer.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: He's rarely called by his real name, "Nicholas".
• Platonic Life-Partners: With Jessi. While the two of them did briefly date, they eventually decided they were better off as friends and managed to successfully patch things up.
• Rule of Symbolism: Nick's first hormone monster is totally incompetent, his second is self-centered and objectifies girls and his third is Connie, who helps him get In Touch with His Feminine Side. While Nick may be the slowest of the boys to physically develop, it seems he may be the fastest to emotionally develop.
• Sizeshifter: His superpower in "Super Mouth" is changing size as "Big Dick Boy".
• Teeny Weenie: His junk is pretty small, though he's still a kid and the last member of his class to hit puberty. He is very insecure about it. A comment from his father implies it will never be impressive.
• Title Drop: More than once refers to his own Big Mouth.
  Nick: Me and my big mouth. [belches] Big mouth, that's the show. That's the show.
• Took a Level in Jerkass:
  • Lampshaded by his mother who states he's becoming an 'asshole'. While Nick wasn't exactly a saint before, in Season 3 as he's progressing slowly through puberty he's done somewhat nastier things as he lashed out at his parents for the first time, developed an obsession with his new phone that detaches him from reality and caused him to ignore Andrew and his parents and even went behind their backs to get said phone back, uploaded a humiliating video of his father on YouTube, coerced Andrew to drive him to Montauk and spectacularly failed at that, also lashed out at Jay and insulted him frequently during his stay at his house.
  • It returns in Seasons 4 and 5 where his insecurities attract Tito the Anxiety Mosquito and Walter becomes a Hate Worm after Jessi publicly rejects him. This leads him to lashing out at others and being a jerk to everyone. He gets better in both season finales thanks to the intervention of others.
• Undying Loyalty: The end of the first season shows that, for all the faults he might have, he is loyal to his friends to the end, especially to Andrew. He was willing to stay with Andrew in the pornscape forever, throwing away his life and being potentially molested just to try to make Andrew snap out of his addiction. He had already shown features of this in the first episode, when he gives Andrew his pants, or when they go to New York, and despite all of Andrew's issues, he always ends up sticking with him. And even in season 3, when they friendship reaches it's lowest point, it is Nick who apologizes and tries to amend things.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: In a moment of Condescending Compassion, Nick advises Andrew to pursue Missy because, in his opinion, Andrew is not going to have many girls willing to go out with him. Andrew becomes obsessed with Missy to a terrifying degree.
• Vocal Dissonance: Nick has a very deep voice, which is especially unusual as he's meant to be a late bloomer.
• We Used to Be Friends: Nick's friendship with Andrew starts to shatter in "Super Mouth" when Nick kisses Missy, ending with Nick and Andrew parting on bitter terms. They've since made up in the Season 4 episode "Poop Madness."

Andrew Glouberman

Andrew Glouberman

"I mean, sure, normally I'd go home and jerk off, eat a giant page of Doritos, fall asleep on the floor, fart myself awake, and go down to dinner."

Voiced By: John Mulaney

"The uterus? I thought girls had vaginas."

Nick's best friend, a nerdy kid who hit puberty at the age of 11 and is exploring himself, with the often unwanted assistance of his Hormone Monster. He regularly struggles to control his urge to masturbate.

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• Affectionate Nickname: Maurice tends to call him "sweetheart". This however, tends to leave Andrew uncomfortable.
• All Men Are Perverts: Many people, including Andrew himself, acknowledge that he is a creep. Especially since he cannot resist any opportunity to get off and some of his fantasies are outright disturbing.
• Ambiguously Bi: Is both attracted to The Rock and Missy. He's not worried about it though when he learned sexuality is just a spectrum. There are subtle hints he feels a certain level of attraction towards Nick, though they solve that issue in "Am I Gay?". In season 4, it's not at all subtle he is attracted to Jessi's new boyfriend, asking Nick to screenshot his shirtless pictures and send them to him, and in season 5 he acts like a Stalker with a Crush to his teacher. Despite this, he's never identified as openly bi like Jay.
• Amicable Exes: Double Subverted. While Missy still tries to remain friends with him, Andrew is clearly not over her yet, and fully pushes her away on Valentine's Day. It isn't until halfway through Season 3 that the two of them finally sort things out.
• The Atoner: He tries to make amends with Lars and Missy during the third season after what happened on Valentine's Day and it's only until the latter half of the season is he on amicable terms with them.
• Being Evil Sucks: Whenever Andrew lets his worst traits take over him, his life often goes to Hell. In season 4, being unable to let go of his anger towards Nick not only turns him into a bully but also gets him dangerously and painfully constipated.
• Beware the Nice Ones: While Andrew is a genuinely nice guy and kind of a pushover, when he gets angry, he gets really angry.
• Big Bad: Andrew actually becomes the main antagonist in "My Furry Valentine", since his personality is at his worst there and drives the conflict with his actions with everyone else, including Maury, becoming disgusted with his actions, especially when he tries forcing Lars out of his wheelchair.
• Bi-Wildered: When Andrew begins to have feelings for men, he thinks he might be gay. What confuses him more is that he still has feelings for women. He's informed that it's normal during puberty to have attraction to men and women, and becomes less confused about his attractions.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: It turns out that when Andrew can be highly academic when he abstains from masturbation and sexual thoughts.
• Butt-Monkey: While all the kids go through at least one embarrassing thing per episode, Andrew suffers the most.
• Cannot Talk to Women: He's shown to be... quite hopeless when he's trying to impress girls, particularly when the girl in question is Missy.
• Crazy Jealous Guy:
  • Andrew is extremely possessive of Missy, which she is not at all comfortable with. She breaks off their relationship when he starts talking about marriage and children (keeping in mind that they are in the seventh grade). He later tries to rekindle things on Valentine's Day, only to go completely berserk when he thinks that Missy and Lars are together. When he sees Nick kissing Missy, he completely ends their friendship, until the next season that is.
  • He repeats his mistakes with Bernie when he finds out she's got a good-looking male friend. Andrew's attempts to keep them apart only end up bringing them together.
  • Andrew develops a platonic version when he finds out Nick has a new best friend in high school.
• Depraved Bisexual: While he's still only Ambiguously Bi, he develops a creepy affection for Mr. Keating in "The Green Eyed Monster," covertly threatening to kill Mr. Keating's fiancee and insisting Mr. Keating think of Andrew when having sex with his wife.
• Descent into Addiction: When Missy breaks up with him, Andrew starts to descend into an unhealthy porn addiction.
• Deuteragonist: As Nick's best friend and Foil, Andrew is second only to him in terms of most prominence.
• Dogged Nice Guy: Deconstructed in "My Furry Valentine", where Andrew tries to win Missy back during Valentine's Day by showering her with gifts, which only makes her feel overwhelmed. He then gets super possessive after he sees Missy giving a Valentine's Card (as a friend) to Lars, believing that Lars is trying to "steal" Missy from him and even believing that he is Obfuscating Disability. It all culminates in him making a scene at Lola's party, with him getting aggressive at Lars and completely pushing Missy away.
• Dreadful Musician: Andrew made it into a school jazz club simply because he was the only other applicant, even though he's a terrible musician.
• Fatal Flaw:
  • Despite showing some self-awareness about it, Andrew's fatal flaw is his tendency towards It's All About Me, being somewhat self-absorbed and not being entirely aware of how his actions affect others, being more concerned with how circumstances affect him or make him look to others. In Season 2, he was more worried about looking like a pervert rather than the girl's feelings when Gina developed her breasts, and when he masturbated to Leah, he cared more about how embarrassed he felt rather than how Leah must have felt. And then comes Season 3 where he tries to act like the incident in "My Furry Valentine" where he pulled Lars out of his wheelchair didn't happen but nobody lets him forget about what he did.
  • His lack of self-esteem and obsessive/possessive behavior as well. He seems sort of desperate for love, being why he becomes so attached to Missy, which pushes her away from him. This also causes him to become arrogant in situations. This behavior ended up with him pushing Lars out of the wheelchair.
• The First Cut Is the Deepest: Played Straight. Much like every kid with their first crush, Andrew is devastated when Missy breaks up with him and is left with heavy emotional baggage that sticks with him throughout Season 2 and 3.
• Flanderization: In the first season, Andrew masturbated a lot, but wasn't much more aggressive about it than a stereotypical teenage boy. As the seasons progressed, he became more cocky and open about his sexuality and masturbation habits, to the point where he can't get through dinner without getting off, does it in more inappropriate places, and is bewildered that people could live without doing it daily. Even Maury is stunned by how many lines Andrew will cross just to jerk off. It's practically an addiction by Season 5, possibly even a compulsion, given that he's heavily implied to have OCD and sees it as expelling "poison" from his system. When he appears in Human Resources, it's only to showcase just how much he masturbates, even overwhelming other Hormone Monsters.
• Foil: To Nick. While Nick is a late bloomer with puberty, Andrew is an early bloomer, having already started around the beginning of sixth grade. Nick has a supportive family and high self-esteem, while Andrew comes from a barely-functional family and is usually a pushover. Nick can talk to girls without any trouble, while Andrew's lust makes him come off as creepy.
• Gasshole: Andrew has a tendency to fart whenever he falls down. Or whenever he lies. In "Super Mouth", he farts on command to turn himself invisible and visible.
• Hated by All: Downplayed as he's not outright despised by anybody, but by the seventh season, very few people in-universe can say something positive about Andrew's character and nearly everyone (even Maury at times) consider him to be a disgusting creep. While he is still friends with Nick, Jessi, Jay and Missi, only Nick and Jay seem to care enough about their friendship to tolerate him, while Jessi and Missy tolerate him out of proximity rather than because they like him. Nick's whole family (except Elliot) by this point, are sickened by him, nobody at school has anything nice to say about him, and even his own family aren't all that fond of him, especially his father.
• Heel Realization: During the Thanksgiving special in season 5 audience polls repeatedly state the viewers wish that Andrew would die. After Maury lists all of the many awful things he's done, he spends the rest of the season cultivating a personality as "Tender Andrew".
• Heroic BSoD: After Missy breaks up with him, Andrew is left miserable and depressed, which eventually leads to his porn addiction in the Season 1 finale.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Nick. The two have been close friends since Elementary School, and no matter how many arguments they get into, they almost always apologize and make up for it. It isn't until Season 3 that their friendship finally reaches it's breaking point, which was fixed in Season 4.
• Instant Humiliation Just Add Youtube: At the end of season 1, he is the main suspect of being a serial killer. He gets freed when a video proves he has nothing to do with it. However, the video is of him getting rid of several jizz filled socks after picking his nose and falling on the ground with his pants falling. The video becomes a viral humiliation but is almost never mentioned again and Andrew's life seems completely unchanged. Most likely because stuff like this happens to him on a regular basis.
• Invisible Streaker: His superpower in "Super Mouth" is turning invisible, but it only works when he farts, and is only effective if he's nude.
• Ironic Name: His name means "Strong and manly", neither of which fits Andrew at all.
• Jerkass Ball: Implied to be in imitation of his father, Marty. Andrew often lets his negative emotions control his behavior, which rarely goes well for him or anyone else.
  • During "My Furry Valentine", and a severe case at that. After finding out that Missy still has feelings for him, Andrew gets overconfident and goes through several misguided attempts at courtship. When they don't work, he gets frustrated and angrily tells Missy that they belong together, which only pushes Missy away and makes Andrew double-down in his anger.
  • Andrew is still obsessed with Missy months after their 5-day relationship ended, despite her bluntly telling him to get over it, and he continues to exhibit a sense of ownership over her. He basically ends his friendship with Nick because Nick and Missy shared a consensual kiss. But Andrew did not consider himself to be "cheating" on Missy while he was romantically pursuing his first cousin Cheryl.
  • He acts like a huge jerk to Nick in the first half of season 4, taking every opportunity to mock and humiliate him, they eventually reconcile with each other.
• Jewish and Nerdy: Played absolutely straight, with the nerdy part increasing his appeal to Missy. Sometimes combined with Jewish Complaining, but not to anywhere near the extent that his father reaches.
• Kick the Dog:
  • Frustrated and confused by his failed attempts at wooing Missy, and increasing jealousy over her friendship with Lars, Andrew angrily confronts the two of them and pulls Lars out of his wheelchair and onto the floor in front of everyone at a party.
  • Andrew is also the only kid in school who is openly mean to Caleb. Special mention goes to when Caleb asks him to sign his yearbook but Andrew rudely refuses.
• Kissing Cousins: Invoked by name by Andrew himself when Nick raises the incest issue of Andrew's open interest in getting it on with his first cousin Cherry.
• Loser Protagonist: Andrew is awkward, unpopular and doesn't appear to have much going for him in the way of self-esteem. Nonetheless, he's one of five protagonists of the show.
• Nerds Are Pervs: Andrew is a Jewish and Nerdy Hormone-Addled Preteen who jerks off almost all the time, especially in places that are inappropriate to do so (like in front of his dead grandpa's open casket).
  • In the Season 7 finale Andrew gets ahold of a time machine and goes back to several points in his past, accumulating other Andrews along the way. They all decide to circle-jerk each other off.
• Nerd Glasses: They fit his typical nerdy looks and personality.
• Nervous Wreck: In Season 4, he develops what appears to be a bad case of OCD and ends up constantly paranoid. When his grandfather dies after Andrew deviates from his ritual to masturbate, Andrew becomes panicked that he killed him. Even after realizing that wasn't the case, he instead develops an intense fear of death, spending every second focusing on what could kill him in that moment.
• Never My Fault:
  • In Season 3 this starts to become more prevalent, with Andrew even considering to use Lizer's insistence that "men are animals" as an excuse for all of his actions which includes his general lack of self-control and freaking out about Missy and Lars to the point of pulling the latter out of his wheelchair. This actually sticks as while Andrew is partially aware of how much of a loser he is in comparison to his friends, he doesn't take responsibility for some of his more unsavory actions, including how he teamed up with Lars with the intent of sabotaging Nick's date with Missy and forcing him to blurt out the fact that he actually doesn't like Missy. He also doesn't seem to understand why Missy broke up with him and instead vents about it so he could Nick even lampshades that Andrew is 'always playing the victim' rather than seeing how he screwed something up himself. Finally in the Season 3 finale, while Andrew isn't incorrect when he tells Nick that he's a jerk to him and a bad friend, he doesn't own up to the fact that he himself sabotaged Nick's date and his overall short-lived relationship with Missy purely out of spite, and ignores the fact that Andrew himself is not always a good friend to Nick either.
  • Andrew often blames his actions on Maury's influence. However, Maury is also Matthew's Hormone Monster and Matthew is better able to restrain both Maury and himself.
• Nice Jewish Boy: In earlier seasons and at this point, subverted. He undergoes a serious case of Jerkass Ball in My Furry Valentine but tries to make up for it in Season 3, only to have his friendship with Nick derail horribly by his own hand at season's end, making his newfound rage and bitterness stick.
• Nightmare Fetishist: Has shades of this at times. Most evident in "Rankings". When Maurice points out Devin's beautiful hair, Andrew says he would like to cut it off and put it down his pants. This prompts Maury to honestly ask if Andrew is the Ponytail Killer. Later, while talking about Ali's smooth skin, Andrew wonders what it would be like if you could remove someone's skin and still have them be alive. Nick calls him Hannibal Lecter.
• Obsessively Organized: Downplayed in Season 4, which heavily suggests he has OCD, but mostly plays it realistically. He has one known ritual for when he masturbates, but it's extremely specific and complex, and if he doesn't set up everything a specific way (triple-checking the locks, taking the right amount of tissues and lotion, etc), then he can't begin because he doesn't feel safe. This gets worse after deviating from the ritual coincides with the death of his grandfather, and Andrew believes he's responsible for his death. However, most of his anxiety isn't so much based in order and rituals as it is just intrusive thoughts about death, existentialism, and morality.
• Once Done, Never Forgotten: Andrew ruined his first impression at high school when he tripped and landed hands-first onto a girl's boobs, which ended with him getting beaten relentlessly by her psychotic boyfriend.
• Pretty Fly for a White Guy: With Jazz culture rather than modern hip-hop, though he's absolutely terrible at it.
• Rage Breaking Point: After his father forcibly waxes off his mustache and starts insulting him during the middle of a big basketball game, Andrew finally snaps and tries to attack him.
  • In general, his friendship with Nick reaches it's breaking point in the end of season 3. While he is furious about Nick kissing Missy, he gives Nick two opportunities to come straight and be honest with him, (first one after he kisses Missy, second one when he accepts it, but Nick discovers he does not really like Missy after Andrew gives him his blessing), and and it's the last one that truly pushes him away from Nick, having felt doubly betrayed and mistreated by Nick one too many times.
• Rejected Apology: When Nick tries to apologize to him for kissing Missy, Andrew, while certainly not as angry about it as before, just can't bring himself to accept his apology and tells Nick that their friendship is over. It took season 4 for them to make up.
• Sickly Neurotic Geek: Andrew apparently suffers from eczema, hemorrhoids, plantar fasciitis and a number of obscure allergies. Colophony in particular triggers a very bad allergic reaction. His Kangol hat causes him to suffer from blisters that literally sizzle and ultimately causes his skin to bond with the hat, so that when it is ripped off his hair goes with it.
• Smart People Wear Glasses: Outright defied by Andrew who is neither Book Smart not Street Smart. When Maury tries to reassure him while he's stressing out during tests and tries to put this trope in effect by pointing out that he's the 'best in his grade' because he wears his 'schmuck glasses' only for Andrew to correct him and say that he's not the best in his grade and only wears his glasses because he has shitty eyes.
• This Loser Is You: Andrew is a thirteen year old every-man who is pretty much average in everything. He is not as witty as Nick, as smart as Jessi or Missy, or as emotionally resilient as Jay. Most of his life involves dealing with his dysfunctional family, his inability to control his impulses, his lack of athleticism, and his mountain of neuroses and health issues. In short, he is every kid who does not stand out among their peers. Caleb even notices this and, in his comics, gives Andrew a Blessed with Suck super power compared to all the other kids.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Andrews starts trying to make an effort to become more compassionate and considerate in season 5.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: During "My Furry Valentine" and the beginning of season 3, he develops into a Crazy Jealous Guy who assaults Lars for dating Missy. It does not get any better for him at the end of Season 3, when he has a massive fallout with Nick and bullies him during summer camp in Season 4. Once he gets back to school, he seeks out seventh graders just to manipulate them.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: In the season 4 finale, "What Are You Gonna Do?", Andrew asks Nick's ghost to say that he's proud of him while he's possessing his father's body.
• We Used to Be Friends: Andrew's friendship with Nick starts to shatter in "Super Mouth" when Andrew sees Nick kissing Missy which ends with Andrew parting with Nick on very bitter terms. It took until Season 4 for them to consider reconciling.
• Yandere: In Season 5's "The Green Eyed Monster," he stalks his teacher everywhere and becomes so jealous of his fiancee that he threatens to kill her several times.

Jessi Glaser

Jessica "Jessi" Cobain Glaser

"How come in all these videos, puberty for boys is like the miracle of ejaculation, and for girls, we're just a yarn ball of aching tubes?"

Voiced By: Jessi Klein

"If you're here to tell me how awful it is to be a woman, the Statue of Liberty and my mom already covered it."

Andrew and Nick's old time friend. She is a snarky, intelligent girl who recently reached puberty. She is having a hard time adapting herself to womanhood and her difficult home life with her parents always fighting and eventually divorcing.

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• A-Cup Angst: In "Girls Feel Horny Too", she feels jealous of Fatima's large bosom, especially compared to her unflattering bra. She's also visibly jealous of Gina's bust as she makes several snide comments about it.
• Affectionate Nickname:
  • "Jellybean" by her father.
  • "Jessi Bear" by her mother.
  • Connie has a plethora of these for her, mostly being ethnic food, "Raviolli", "Gyoza" and "Pupusa" are some of them.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: In season three, she discovers that she's sexually attracted to Judd, Nick's trouble-making older brother. In season 4, she begins dating a graffiti artist who calls himself Michel Angelo.
• All the Good Men Are Gay: It's implied that she feels this way about Matthew.
• Always Someone Better: After moving to the city in season 4, Shannon enrolls Jessi in an elite private school for girls. Jessi, accustomed to being the smartest at Bridgeton Middle besides Missy, is overwhelmed by the rigorous curriculum and the sheer number of impressive extracurricular activities her new classmates are involved in. This triggers her anxiety and depression.
• Ambiguously Bi: She dated Nick and Michael Angelo, but season 5 shows her having a crush on Ali. The ambiguity comes in because she's not ready to commit to a label at the end of her arc, and Ali is the only girl she's found attractive. She also ends up ogling at Caitlin's breast but it's ambiguous on whether she was legit getting horny over it or was just admiring it.
• Amicable Exes: Zig-zagged with Nick. They dated mostly for peer pressure, rather because they wanted to date. They had a fight and broke up, but ultimately, they apologized. However, Nick continues to pursue her in later seasons, which makes their friendship much more rocky.
• Be a Whore to Get Your Man: Subverted. Jessi got a lacy red bra because it made her feel better about her insecurity over her breasts. She openly told her mother that she wanted something "voluptuous" and that this is about expressing her sexuality. While she enjoyed seeing the boys staring at her in awe, she was rightfully creeped out when Mr. Lizer openly flirted with her and reduced to tears when Lola snapped her bra strap. She kept the bra, but stopped wearing it.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: She has some of this with Jay as he makes frequent advances towards her that she frequently pushes off, and she calls him 'gross' and states that he 'doesn't know what she wants', and at the end of Season 1 they do get together. However, this is quickly deconstructed in the opener of Season 2 as they break up shortly after running away when Jessi realizes that Jay's attitude is too much for her to handle and tolerate, and Jay dislikes the way she constantly criticizes him.
• Berserk Button:
  • Jay's unwelcome advances are quick to piss her off. At one point, after offering to touch her boobs, she grabs him by the neck, lifts him from the floor, and chokes him against a locker.
  • Guys being perverts and any misogynistic remark or action is also quick to set her off.
• Book Dumb: From season two onwards, her grades appear to be suffering as a result of her depression (to the detriment of her mother). But she's shown to be a smart girl nonetheless.
• Bratty Teenage Daughter: Downplayed, but she's noticeably hostile towards her mother, particularly when under the influence of Connie.
• Color Motif: Red. Jessi is a redhead. After she had her first period, she started wearing red pants and also has an entire plot about wearing a red bra. In "Dark Side of the Boob" and "Smooch or Share", Jessi wears red pajama bottoms. She wears a red dress during her duet with Matthew in "My Furry Valentine". and her costume in "Super Mouth" is completely red, as she gets the name "Scarlet Truther".
• Cynicism Catalyst: Her parents' divorce appears to trigger this for her, as she starts being more outwardly aggressive and later develops depression as a result of her tumultuous emotions.
• Daddy's Girl: While she does get along with her mother Shannon (at least when not under the influence of Connie), scenes show that she's somewhat closer to her father Greg, and she feels much more sympathy towards him especially when she finds out that her mom is cheating on him. Played even more straight in Season 2 where she fervently takes her dad's side by spending much more time with him over her mom, whom she starts rebelling against in revenge for having cheated on her dad.
• D-Cup Distress: Following the purchase of a provocative and voluptuous red bra, Jessi manages to make her boobs look bigger. However, she soon feels overwhelmed by the attention received (including by one of her teachers), Jay throwing himself at her and begging to give her money while Devin calls her trashy and Lola gets aggressive against her. The song "Sexy Red Bra" that plays over it even mentions that she will become "an object of envy and awe".
• Deadpan Snarker: She is prone to sarcastic, strong jabs towards people around her, specially when she doesn't like them. Her snarky tendencies are ramped up when she is with Matthew, who shares her witty and sarcastic sense of humor. After they make fun of Jay together, she says she feels like her most genuine self with Matthew.
• Depraved Bisexual: Downplayed. When Jessie develops a crush on Leah, she becomes obsessed with emulating her entire appearance, right down to the navel piercing that ends up getting infected. However, she does dial back when Leah calls her out.
• Drowning My Sorrows: She gets high off her father's edibles in order to escape her depression and stressful home life.
• Fag Hag: Jessi very much wants Matthew to make out with Aiden and then tell her all about it. She also seems to enjoy hanging around with Matthew even more than the rest of her male friends.
• Fiery Redhead: Even before she hit puberty and started following Connie's influence, Jessi's always been a feisty, quick-tempered girl.
• First-Name Ultimatum: Does this to her mom sometimes, specially when she is under Connie's influence.
• First Period Panic: Shown in the first season... while wearing her white pants... at the Statue of Liberty.
• Five-Finger Discount: In season two, Jessi shoplifts a bubblegum pink lipgloss at the instruction of Connie. This later turns into a full-blown shoplifting problem, but it seems to be mostly resolved after she was caught and had to face legitimate consequences for her actions.
• Five Stages of Grief: It's subtle, but Jessi goes through these in Season 2 about her parent's divorce. She first runs away because she can't handle the new reality, then her anger builds up into causing her to act out by using her father's drugs and shoplifting, when that is gone, she starts blaming herself for everything and is later afflicted by the Depression Kitty. She ends the season agreeing to seek therapy as ways to process things in a more healthy manner.
• Hates Her Parent: Starting with season 2, she hates her mother for her family's downfall, but she still loves her father, and also out of pity, because she feels he was the one screwed over by her mother.
• Good Is Not Soft: She's often snarky and closed-off, but she's a good person who cares deeply about her friends.
• Honey Trap: A PG version of this. She flirtatiously touches Andrew's arm (while complimenting him on his "allyship to women") in an attempt to get him to tell her about the lists the other boys made ranking the girls in order of hotness. It works, but Jessi's not on any of them, which devastates her.
• Hypocrite:
  • Jessi comes to realize this about herself at the Shame Wizard's prompting. Although she loves to preach feminism, Jessi does not get along well with other girls (Missy is seemingly her only female friend) and she can be just as hostile towards girls she feels threatened by (such as Gina) as Devin. This self-realization feeds Jessi's depression.
  • Likewise, she's jealous of Gina's developing endowment without considering how the attention is affecting her, even though she had a similarly uncomfortable moment with the push-up bra that gave her unwanted attention from both girls and boys.
  • Jessi argues with her father and Caitlin about how oppressive it is to force female pronouns on her baby sister, not realizing that she is no better, as she is trying to force neutral pronouns on her little sister instead of waiting for her to grow up and decide for herself which pronouns she is comfortable with.
• It's All My Fault: At the end of an episode where Jessi tries her father's edible drugs, she is struck hard with this, blaming the divorce of her parents on herself, as well as the fact that her mother kicked her father out of the house. That's when the Shame Wizard takes her too, managing to even add an extra layer of guilt when he makes her blame herself for Trump's election because she wasn't more aggressive when volunteering for Hillary's campaign.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Temper and snarky remarks aside, Jessi can be a pretty friendly girl and is a good friend who will do favors for her other friends, just so long as they aren't stupid ones.
• Joins to Fit In: She was prone to this in the early episodes, notably making fun of Missy in order to gain the respect of Lola and Devin. She gets better over the course of the series.
• Likes Older Men: Downplayed. But most of the boys she's felt a genuine sexual attraction to are older high school-age boys such as Nick's big brother Judd, a senior in high school and in Season 4, she gets a short-lived romance with a ninth grader and pretentious artist who calls himself 'Michael Angelo'.
• Living Lie Detector: Her superpower in "Super Mouth" is getting others to tell the truth just by touching them as "The Scarlet Truther". It ends up causing more harm than it does good because it happens whether or not she wants it.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy. A platonic example with Matthew. Jessi is portrayed as a Tomboy while Matthew is portrayed as a Camp Gay.
• Master of the Mixed Message: Her slut-walk celebrate a girl's right to dress however she wants, but points out to the boys that they dress for themselves rather than to give the boys something to lust over. Then Missy comes to school dressed modestly (because that's how she wants to dress) and Jessi snaps at her for not dressing in a way that would prompt a reaction from the boys.
• Moral Myopia: Considers herself a paragon of feminism, yet she's not above saying and doing things that undermine other girls out of insecurity. First she told Lola that Gina let Nick feel her up. Then she yelled at Missy for not wearing provocative clothing during a slut-walk, completely missing the point of why feminists participate in slut-walks.
• Must Make Amends:
  • By "My Furry Valentine", she has considerably mellowed out and after receiving some support from Matthew, she apologizes to her mother for how much of a pain she has been to her and her new girlfriend.
  • At the end of Season 5, she resolves her argument with Missy by finally realizing how rude she's been and apologizing at Missy's house.
• No Periods, Period: Defied. Jessi gets her period while on a school trip to the Statue of Liberty. In white shorts, no less! She starts wearing pads and at the end of the episode, she meets the Hormone Monstress, Connie.
• Not So Above It All: She struggles with this in season two, when she finds herself perpetuating misogynistic ideologies simply because she's jealous of the attention Gina gets from boys. She does seem to work through it and become less hypocritical as of season three.
• Parent with New Paramour: She's outwardly hostile towards Cantor Dina, though whether this is simply because she's dating Shannon or because the two had an adulterous affair is ambiguous.
• Pet the Dog: Together with Matthew, they throw Jay a bone after they deeply hurt his feelings by using him for laughs during their science project and turning him into their project.
• Platonic Life-Partners: With Matthew.
• Precocious Crush: She's develops one on Judd, Nick's older brother, in Season 3 as she becomes extremely awkward and tongue-tied around him and even has a fantasy about him.
• The Runaway: Alongside Jay at the end of season 1, she feels overwhelmed by her parents divorce and her new relationship with Jay, so they decide to run away together.
• Shipper on Deck: She goes above and beyond in season 3 to make sure that Matthew and Aiden get together, even posing as a sort of beardfor Matthew.
• So Beautiful, It's a Curse: Downplayed, she wore a red bra to school at Connie's urging. She wasn't prepared for the mass Male Gaze, comments and hostility from Lola. After Lola hurts her, Jessi fled to the bathroom to remove it. While she felt overwhelmed by the attention, she still liked the bra.
• Straw Feminist: Jessi strongly touts feminism as an ideology, and repeatedly emphasizes the importance of "listening to women". But she is also extremely judgmental of other girls, very few of whom actually live up to Jessi's overly-idealized expectations. Jessi is not above Slut-Shaming when she is feeling jealous of other girls who trigger her own insecurities about her appearance and development. She also has a habit of only paying attention to white women's issues and undermines Missy when she tries to raise awareness of the school's mascot being racially insensitive.
• Tomboy: Most of Jessi's close friends are boys and she shows more interest in things like sports than she does in hair and makeup. She usually just pulls her hair back into a ponytail rather than style it and she only wears dresses on special occasions, preferring shorts or pants. She is stunned by how good she looks when Devin gives her a makeover. But she does not show any interest in maintaining her new look and goes back to her normal style immediately.
• Tomboy with a Girly Streak: Jessi's more of a tomboy compared to the other girls, but still wears a pink shirt and a pink hair-tie, and isn't above doing somewhat girlier things such as shopping or wearing dresses. Also, her sexual fantasies about Judd depict him as a hyper-masculine Action Hero who is utterly unimpressed by her feminism and treats her like a damsel.
• Tomboyish Ponytail: Jessi wears a ponytail that complements her masculine nature.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: During season 2, her parent's divorce causes her to act out violently, which includes using her father's drugs and shoplifting from a local pharmacy.
• Took a Level in Kindness: By "My Furry Valentine", she has come back from her step up in jerkassery in season 2 to her original degree of being a relatively nice person who is also a snarker. She even apologizes to her mom.
• Tsundere: She's pretty chummy and chill with her friends, but she gets much more aggressive with Nick when he lies about him breaking up with her and after chewing him out in school she avoids him, but mellows out back to normal when they decide to go back to being friends. And she later acts the same with Jay when he starts hitting on her, and even when they do officially get together, she enjoys kissing him and relates to him over family issues, but his magic tricks and quoting his Dad's commercials still annoy her.

Jay Bilzerian

Jay Bilzerian

"Whether sick or tired or uninspired, you still gotta bring the bone!"

Voiced By: Jason Mantzoukas

"Magic is not gay! It transcends sexuality!"

A friend of the group, who has a father with infamous quotable commercials. He seeks to be a magician and is eager to bond with his friends due to a troubled home life. He is also known by his friends as a sex deviant.

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• Abandoned Catchphrase: By season three, he began relying less and less on his dad's commercials. In season four, he never once quotes his dad's ads.
• Abusive Parents: His alcoholic mother is so neglectful she didn't notice he ran away from home for an entire week. She also forgot how old he is and served him toxic alcohol as a reward. His father is a corrupt divorce lawyer who openly mocks his hobbies in his commercials and treats him more like a manservant than his son. His brothers bully him relentlessly as well and force him to eat their jizz.
• All Men Are Perverts: He's easily the biggest sex-fiend in the entire show. Although unlike Andrew, he feels absolutely no shame about it.
• Amazon Chaser: He describes Lola beating up his brothers as "so hot", kick-starting their relationship through Season 4.
• Ambiguously Brown: His nationality or race are never clearly defined, and his skin is tanner than the Caucasian and Jewish cha. Also, his surname is of Armenian origin.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: In "The ASSes", Jay is diagnosed with ADHD and is prescribed Adderall.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: He has some of this with Jessi as he makes frequent advances towards her that she frequently pushes off, and she calls him 'gross' and states that he 'doesn't know what she wants', and at the end of Season 1 they do get together, however, they break up soon after running away when Jessi realizes that Jay's attitude is too much for her to handle and Jay dislikes the way she constantly criticizes him. In Season 2, he ends up gaining a little bit of this with Matthew of all people near the end as Matthew frequently pokes fun of him and Jay often quickly retorts in annoyance even when Matthew tries to offer some friendship to him, and when Jay rejects him Matthew responds with his typical name-calling. But during the slumber party they end up making out after the Smooch or Share game led to their first kiss (Matthew's at least and Jay's first boy kiss). And although Matthew brushes him off the next day, it's highly implied that Jay is still attracted him.
• Big Ol' Eyebrows: A trait he shares with his father and brothers.
• Book Dumb: Jay is shown to be performing very poorly in school, but when it comes to anything sex-related he's practically a genius to the point where he impress even Maurice with his knowledge. However, Jay isn't genuinely dumb, he just has a hard time paying attention and when he takes Adderall he's the first among his peers to complete the school test, suggesting that he can excel in academics if he sets his mind to it.
• Cargo Ship: In-Universe, he's gotten it on with several pillows and a bathmat. One pillow even gets pregnant!
• Circumcision Angst: Averted. Jay is the only uncircumcised kid in the group, but he's very proud to show it off.
• Conditioned to Accept Horror: Played for Laughs, he's so used to his dysfunctional family that he ends up chafing at the structure and rules of living with the Birches, despite how much he envied Nick over having loving and attentive parents. He eventually returns home, deciding he'd rather "live like a beaten pig" in his own words.
• Did Not Think This Through: Does the classic "summon a rose from his shirtsleeve" trick to cheer up Jessi at her bat mitzva. Problem is, he didn't realize you need to remove the thorns first, with predictable results.
• Elemental Powers: His superpower in "Super Power" is the ability to control and shapeshift jizz as "The Last Cumbender".
• Flanderization: In season one, he has strategic means of fucking his pillow, which becomes a bit of a plot point, and later graduates to a bath mat and, further down the line, another pillow and a couch cushion. By season three, he apparently has sex with any inanimate(?) object he can get his hands on, even if it's less than convenient (Duke Ellington assumes his dick must be indestructible). This is slightly justified by him apparently not masturbating for a while due to his sexual identity crisis.
• Foil: To Andrew. They are the most hormonal boys in their class. (To the extent that Maury thinks Jay is his own hormone monster) Andrew starts out as a well meaning slave to his hormones who falls into deeper and deeper depravity, while Jay is The Friend Nobody Likes who develops a sensitive side his classmates come to appreciate. By season 7 Jay has completely lost his title of 'the pervert' to Andrew, and is more accepted whereas Andrew has had a major falling out with each of his close friends.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Sometimes he is considered an annoyance to his own friends due to his annoying opinions and ideas, to the point he is often singled out from Andrew and Nick's friendship. At most, Jessi seems to find him an amusement rather than a friend and he doesn't interact with Missy nearly as much as he does with Jessi (though he and Missy do bond over writing erotic fanfiction together). This is averted in later seasons through Jay going through character development and his friends realizing that his bad behavior was the result of a horrific home life.
• Handsome Lech: Jay's is pretty good looking, but he also has a shameless personality having no problem bragging about his sexual exploits and his crushes to his peers.
• Happily Adopted: He lives with the Birches halfway through Season 3, which provides him a much more stable and loving environment than his old home life. He eventually decides to go back home and fixes his house himself.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: He has a habit of screaming at undeserving targets over very minor annoyances. Given his home life, it's little wonder he has anger issues.
• Heroes Love Dogs: He may not be a typical hero but he's still one of the sweetest guy in the series (not to mention the most innocent member of his family) and he truly cares about Featuring Ludacris.
• Hidden Depths: He shows an impressive coordination in activities like magic tricks, parkour and wrestling. Driving, on the other hand...
• Hilariously Abusive Childhood: His parents are neglectful at best, his mother barely remembers he exists, and his older brothers constantly torment him and forces him to eat their semen.
  Jay: My mom says that's how I get my nutrients!
• Hormone-Addled Teenager: While all of the main characters are hormonal to the ninth degree, Jay plays it to extreme lengths. Jay's hormones are all over the place to the point the guy can be considered "his own hormone monster".
• I Just Want to Have Friends: He is well aware that he is The Friend Nobody Likes and is somewhat desperate to subvert this. When Nick and Andrew have a falling out, he desperately tries to become Andrew's new best friend and implies he is able to track them down when Andrew refuses to have him with them when they go to a camping trip. He outright mentions he craves affection in the finale.
• Innocently Insensitive: Anytime he talks to Jessi, he manages to say just the right thing to piss her off. He does get a bit better about it with time.
• Intergenerational Friendship: Jay and Coach Steve bond and become friends, which works since they've both led (and continue to lead) desperately sad lives and are stuffed full of delusion. It helps that Coach Steve has the maturity level of a child Jay's age.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: In spite of his numerous personality flaws, Jay does seem to be a genuinely friendly guy. After finding Missy's fanfiction, he doesn't shame her or assume she's easy, but genuinely bonds with her over it.
• Loss of Identity: Jay changes significantly because of his relationship with Matthew, such as losing his own hobbies and breaking away from groups that he used to admire. Matthew breaks it off after realizing how unhealthy this kind of change is.
• Lovable Sex Maniac: The guy is a sexual deviant, no doubts there, but he genuinely means well.
• Love Hungry: He is desperate for some sort of connection. He attempts to usurp Nick's place as his mother's son when he notices their fallout and how much better she is at being a mom than his own and desperately wants Jessi to be his girlfriend while admitting his neediness.
• Most Fanfic Writers Are Girls: Averted. He co-writes an erotic fanfiction with Missy (featuring Nathan Fillion and The Rock of Gibraltar's Gustavo) and is actually shown to enjoy it a great deal.
• Nice Guy: Jay may have many flaws, being a Jerkass isn't one of them. Jay's definitely portrayed as one the nicest people in the show whose wiling to stick up for any of his friends.
• Odd Friendship: He bonds with Missy of all people over her erotic fanfiction featuring Nathan Filion and Gustavo and they even collaborate over said fanfiction and an official friendship between them is struck.
• Phrase Catcher: "Stop quoting your dad's commercials!"
• Politically Incorrect Hero: He has a pretty bad view of women, but it's very clear he gets that thanks to his even more misogynistic father.
• The Pollyanna: At times. Despite his rather terrible home life and being aware of it, Jay's a pretty optimistic guy and often cheerfully talks about what kind of horrible things he lives through and endures. However, at times this can crack, especially when he's being treated with genuine love and care from people who actually care for him.
• Pretty Boy: A downplayed example due to the series' art style, but he doesn't have many awkward physical features other than his partial unibrow, and he could qualify for a younger version of Tall, Dark, and Handsome if only he wasn't so annoying.
• The Runaway: Alongside Jessi at the end of Season 1, already unsatisfied with his family life and years of hatred towards his neglectful parents and abusive brothers, but now with a new relationship with Jessi, they decide to run away together. Subverted as they both go back home in the pilot episode of Season 2.
• Running Gag
  • His tendency to quote his father's infamous divorce lawyer commercials, which is immediately followed by someone asking him to stop quoting them.
  • He also like to howl before shouting [insert term] Wolf!
• Stage Magician: Or more, that's what he'd like to be. Reactions to this vary from person to person, but he seems to have some real talent.
• Stronger Than They Look: Despite his frame, Jay is very much into physical activity and easily beats the buffer Charles during wrestling practice.
• Tall, Dark, and Handsome: The various future snippets are consistent in showing him as a tall and very fit adult.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: According to Maury, the reason Jay doesn't have a hormone monster and apparently can't see any of them is that he's so knowledgeable about sex and his libido is so high that he basically is his own hormone monster. Some comments from Maury even imply that Jay knows things about sex that Maury, a 75-million year old anthropomorphic incarnation of raw sexual urges, doesn't know.
• White Sheep: For all his flaws, he's the only member of his family with a degree of decency.
• Yaoi Fangirl: Gender-flipped. Jay becomes a male example of one after reading some of Missy's slash fiction and soon starts collaborating with her on making it both more sexual and bi-oriented.

Missy Foreman-Greenwald

Melissa "Missy" Foreman-Greenwald

"I'm likeable. That's my thing."

Voiced by: Jenny Slate (2017-2020), Ayo Edebiri (2020-present)

"I found out that being alone is sort of a gift. It prepares you for how life is going to be."

A shy and nerdy girl from school. Missy is sweet and kind to everybody and very interested in her studies. She also has a condition that makes her over active if she consumes sugar. During Season 1, she and Andrew both crushed on each other, only to break it off later in the season.

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• Ambiguously Bi: She likes looking at Gina's boobs as much as the boys.
• Amicable Exes: Downplayed with Andrew. While the two still interact with each other, Andrew is clearly still hung up on her. This is eventually subverted on Valentine's Day when Andrew's possessiveness well and truly pushes Missy away. They do get better throughout season 3 and especially 4 though.
• Artists Are Attractive:
  • Her love interests so far have been Andrew and Lars, which implies she has a thing for boys in jazz band.
  • When it comes to her fictional or unattainable crushes, she does seem to be attracted to celebrity Nathan Fillion's cultured side.
  • She also only notices Nick in a sexual way after the two of them are cast as co-stars in a play.
• Badass Adorable: She's a sweet girl, but a couple of her more vindictive moments - say, her chewing out Mr. Lizer and essentially the entire school on their misogyny - prove she's not one to be messed with.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Missy is honestly a sweet girl who always prefers to settle things peacefully, but even she has her limits and can be quite forceful when she's pushed too far, and is a force to be reckoned with due to her capoeira skills.
• Birds of a Feather: With Andrew. Both of them are some of the nerdiest kids in their class and some of the nicer characters in the whole show. Sadly, their relationship doesn't last very long.
• Black and Nerdy: She is the nerdiest character in the show, even surpassing Andrew due to her love of science and history and she is also the darkest-skinned main character.
• Brainy Brunette: In season three, it's revealed that she has the highest GPA in the class (and, in her own words, is the smartest kid in the year by "literally any other metric"). Doubles as a Badass Boast as it's one of the only times we see Missy brag about herself.
• Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: In her imagination (and - often - her sexual fantasies), she's the Gentle Girl to celebrity crush Nathan Fillion's Brooding Boy.
• Celebrity Crush: For Nathan Fillion, whom she describes as a Hunk. This seems to come from a love of Firefly and Castle, both of which he plays the main character.
• Character Development:
  • In Season 1 she's overwhelmed when Andrew tries to kiss her. By the end of Season 3 she's confident enough to kiss Nick onstage.
  • After getting her Hormone Monstress, Missy becomes a lot more self-assured and discovers the depths of her identity. In Season 4, she embraces her Black identity, which leads up to her voice actress change, and is willing to stand up to her parents and Devon for condescending her.
• Covert Pervert: It's revealed mid-way through Season 1 that Missy is just as horny as Andrew and also struggles with keeping her hormones in check and is ashamed of herself. Nearing the end of Season 2, Missy starts to come to terms with her sexuality.
• The Cutie: She's very sweet and endearing, despite being affected by the misfortunes of puberty.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: in Season 4, she embraces her black identity and thus gets a new hairstyle from a Black hair salon. After finding the upkeep of her new hair to be too much for her, Missy unravels it at the end of Season 5, resulting in hairstyle that's similiar to her original one but more lively and confident.
• Fangirl: For both Castle and Firefly, which star her Celebrity Crush.
• Forgiven, but Not Forgotten: How she feels about Andrew and Nick in season 4. While she has overall forgiven them, she still remembers their actions in season 3.
• Genki Girl: Missy is an energetic girl, and she's shown to be particularly hyper when she's excited.
• G-Rated Drug: Sugar (in a particular case, coke) causes her to see things that aren't there, become overactive and become even aggressive for no particular reason.
• Gosh Dang It to Heck!: Missy almost never swears, usually sticking to g-rated replacements. However, during those few moments where she DOES swear, it's always a Precision F-Strike. Beginning in season 4, she begins using profanity more often.
• Heritage Disconnect: Coming from a mixed, 'post-racial' household in a white suburban neighbourhood, Missy is not much in touch with her Black heritage. She connects with it in Season 4 after spending time with her cousins in Atlanta.
• I Am Not Pretty: Played straight. Missy is a cute (if awkward-looking) girl who undergoes a period of intense insecurity due to the sexual behavior of the boys. This is somewhat resolved when her mother takes her to a nude Korean spa, and she learns that there's more than one way to be a beautiful woman.
• Important Haircut:
  • In Season 4, she gets her hair done in box braids as she embraces her black identity and individuality.
  • When her box braids become messy and undone by a lot of poor self-hygiene and dedication to her hate worm, she lets down her hair into its natural state when she resolves to finally get her life together again.
• Motor Mouth: She likes to talk a lot.
• Nice Girl: One of the kindest and sweetest characters in this whole series.
• Older Than They Look: She's actually a few months older than Andrew, but her braces, colorful fashion sense, shared Puppy-Dog Eyes, and overalls give the definite sense of a much younger child. Out of the 5 main characters, she's apparently the last to hit puberty as she doesn't get her own Hormone Monstress until Season 3.
• The One That Got Away: To Andrew. While the two of them start dating halfway through Season 1, Missy started to feel overwhelmed by Andrew's affections.
  Missy: Andrew, you're like sugar to me. I like you, but every time I have you, I lose control, and I — I hate to say it, but I end up regretting it.
• Precision F-Strike: Anytime she swears, it's always unexpected because she mainly never swears.
• Pubescent Braces: She wears braces to portray her in that awkward youth phase.
• Self-Deprecation: In season 2, she starts having severe body image issues and starts to try to hide her body with baggy clothes and is pestered by an evil version of herself that keeps shaming her.
• Straw Feminist: Subverted. Contrary to Jessi, Missy's much less belligerent and aggressive in regards to her feminism. She's also more level-headed when approaching situations that are sexist towards girls and prefers to take a non-hostile approach and upholds her beliefs with much less hypocrisy and instead of expecting the boys to live up to certain expectations, she provides a concrete solution for both girls and boys to solve the sexist issue in the ending of "Girls Are Angry Too".
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: After being caught in the middle of a three-way feud between the boys, the girls and Mr. Lizer, Missy snaps under the pressure and gives everybody a severe, well-deserved dressing down.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: In Season 5, the disrespect she gets from Jessi leads her to get a hate worm and become increasingly hateful towards everyone in her life. She gets better by the season finale, though.
• Weather Manipulation: Her superpower in "Super Mouth" is manipulating thunderstorms, without much control of it, as "Her-ricane".
• Yaoi Fangirl: She has been writing an extended piece of slash fiction featuring Nathan Fillion and Gustavo from the in-show erotic novel "The Rock of Gibraltar".

Matthew MacDell

Matthew MacDell

Voiced By: Andrew Rannells

"Sometimes being a man means putting the ones you love first, and sometimes it means owning up to your mistakes. Not all men value the same things, and that means you can be any man you want. All you need to do is figure out who you are and be true to yourself."

"I can't believe I'm in seventh grade and already over high school. These fucking people."

An openly gay classmate of the main characters. He's the bitchy host of the school morning news who loves to fuel the fires of personal drama to everybody.

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• All Gays are Promiscuous: Averted. Though he's outwardly confident in his sexuality, season three reveals that he's never kissed a guy ( Jay excluded, as he allegedly "doesn't count") and is very nervous about his romantic relationship with Aiden. He is also prone to telling Maury to back off when his sexual suggestions get too hardcore.
• All Gays Love Theater: Matthew is a big fan of plays and musicals, and loves taking the opportunity to show off his singing voice.
• Alliterative Name: Matthew MacDell
• Ascended Extra: He becomes more prominent as the show goes on to the point where he's been given his own character arcs in Seasons 3 and 4.
• Backstory: He mentions this by name in season 2, saying that he used to be cyberbullied in Texas and called the Steer Queer.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: In Season 2, he gains some of this with Jay of all people near the end as Matthew frequently pokes fun of him and Jay often quickly retorts in annoyance even when Matthew tries to offer some friendship to him, and when Jay rejects him Matthew responds with his typical name-calling. But during the slumber party they end up making out after the Smooch or Share game led to their first kiss (Matthew's at least and Jay's first boy kiss). And although Matthew brushes him off the next day, it's highly implied that Jay is still attracted him.
• Big Brother Instinct: Matthew also tries to look out for his younger siblings. He also has this instinct for Caleb, especially in season 7, with Caleb actually viewing Matthew as an older brother figure to seek for guidance, while Matthew watches over him and finds ways to ease Caleb’s stress.
• Breakout Character: His role gets bigger with every season.
• BSoD Song: "I Used to Be Her Favorite", which is about how his close relationship with his mother got strained after she learned he was gay and couldn't deal with it.
• Camp Gay: Perhaps the first animated depiction of a bitchy gay friend, as he's very catty and sassy.
• Closet Key: During the sleepover, Matthew and Jay kiss during a spin the bottle game. When they talk about it again, they make out. This later leads Jay to realize he is bisexual.
• Cool Big Bro: Matthew seems to serve as one towards his younger siblings and Caleb since they all look up to him as a role model, while Matthew does his best to make sure that they are safe and happy.
• The Dandy: Is always well dressed. At one point, he also wears a cowboy costume for no apparent reason.
• Deadpan Snarker: Almost everything he says is some form of dry wit and not even his friends are spared of his sarcasm at times.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Sure he enjoys picking on people and fueling drama, but just like everyone else in the party, he is disgusted with Daniel when he learns that he forces girls to give him blowjobs and slut shames them when they don't comply with his demands, even calling Daniel a "busy little asshole".
  • Like everyone else, Matthew is disgusted at Andrew trying to pull Lars out of his chair in "My Furry Valentine".
  • He comes to regret trying to prank Coach Steve on his birthday, pretending the 9/11 memorial is to him when Coach Steve learns about the terrorist attack and refuses to celebrate his birthday anymore.
  • Even Matthew can't bare to see Jay hitting rock-bottom.
• Flat Character: Lampshaded in Season 2, in which another gay character accuses him of being the stereotypical Camp Gay character with not much depth. This is later Deconstructed as it gives Matthew a minute of self-reflection and leads to him making strides to improve himself.
• Foil: To Andrew. Whereas Andrew tends to easily succumb to almost any sexual suggestion that Maury recommends to him, Matthew is more likely to tell Maury to restrain himself when he starts getting too worked up. This contrasts Andrew's lack of self-control with Matthew's preference for exploring his sexuality more patiently.
• The Gadfly: Matthew enjoys commenting on, and if necessary creating, drama among his classmates. He uses the school news program specifically for this purpose. Deconstructed in season 2. An older gay man points out that Matthew is a loser because this, not counting his sexuality, is his only trait.
  "Being young, gay, and mean is not a personality."
• Gay Best Friend: Claims this role for Jessi in the very first episode. They seem to have a somewhat nicer relationship than with others and he appears to enjoy her wittiness. This gets deconstructed in Season 2; girls don't really see him as a boy and other boys isolate him because they see him only as a gay guy and in part because of his bitchy personality. At the end of the day, he feels somewhat stuck in a role he has to play to maintain his girl friends and doesn't quite feels he fits in any group.
• Gayngst: Matthew is out in the open about being gay and is comfortable with his sexuality. His only real problem is that he's the only openly gay kid in his school, and fears the idea of being alone.
• Given Name Reveal: Or rather a surname reveal: when he brings Jessi to his house and introduced her to his parents, his dad reveals the family's surname as MacDell.
• Hidden Depths: Matthew has a hard time fitting in on school when he isn't being a bitchy gay guy. When he tries to become nicer and let his guard down, the Shame Wizard shows up to reveal he feels that he doesn't quite fit in anywhere, since the girls don't actually acknowledge him as a guy and he has little in common with other guys his age, who actively avoid him, either due to his unpleasant personality or due to being gay.
• I Can Change My Beloved: His influence has changed the person Jay is significantly, but that also means he has inadvertently robbed Jay of his identity. Matthew breaks up with him when he realizes that Jay changing so much for him means that they just aren't that compatible.
• Ink-Suit Actor: He looks like a cartoon version of his actor.
• Jerkass: He genuinely enjoys playing hurtful pranks and making fun of others while fueling any drama that might happen around him and takes pleasure in calling people names.
• Jerkass Realization: In Season 2, he finally realizes how isolated he is from everyone due to his crassness.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: While he still enjoys the misfortune of others, he does have moments of genuine sympathy. The "Heart of Gold" aspect becomes more clear in Season 2, as he starts to realize how his constant belittlement of others isolates him from everyone else. This gives him the motivation to try and be nicer to others, while also becoming closer friends with Jessi.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: After he spends most of season one starting drama and talking down to pretty much everyone, season two serves him some Humble Pie when an older gay man tells him that his crassness is just another form of toxic masculinity and is going to leave him alone and miserable. When his attempts to be nicer to his peers during the meteor shower just leave him open to homophobia, he hides by himself in the teachers' lounge as The Shame Wizard calls him "A lonely little queer."
• Lovable Alpha Bitch: A male version. Matthew is usually very snarky and enjoys spreading gossip, but he has shown himself to also be a loyal friend and a vulnerable person. Matthew is definitely more lovable than Devin.
• Loving Bully: Matthew makes fun of Jay and his lifestyle to hide his own attraction toward him.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy. A platonic example with Jessi. Jessi is portrayed as a Tomboy while Matthew is portrayed as a Camp Gay.
• Massive Numbered Siblings: As seen in "Cellsea" Matthew has four other siblings and by the looks of it appears to be the oldest.
• Momma's Boy: He has a very close relationship with his mother, with them baking together for their church's annual bake-off and watching Dreamgirls together. However, in Season 4 it gets strained after she sees his texts to Aiden and starts giving him the cold shoulder. He even gets a song about their relationship. In Season 5 though, it seems they've repaired their relationship, possibly with help from Matthew's loving dad.
• Odd Friendship: Aside from being Platonic Life-Partners with Jessi, Matthew also seems to be good friends with Caleb who has No Social Skills. The two work in the school news together and Matthew never picks on Caleb like he does with some of the other school people.
• Opposites Attract: In season 5, after seeing Jay naked in the locker room he starts fantasizing about him and realizes that Aiden bores him because their personalities are too similar. He dumps Aiden and spends the rest of the season pursuing Jay who reciprocates in the season finale.
• Pet the Dog: Together with Jessi, they throw Jay a bone after they deeply hurt his feelings by using him for laughs during their science project and turning him into their project. Matthew adds that they don't want to be blamed for his suicide.
  • A more genuine example, in Season 2 after meeting an older gay man who advises him to try and be a little bit kinder to people he tries to do exactly that. And when he sees Jay looking upset after his friends hear about Coach Steve having sex with his mother, Matthew offers him a place in the Teacher's Lounge to sleep in with him. Sure Jay turns it down (thanks to the Shame Wizard's influence) but it was still pretty kind and generous of Matthew.
  • Upon seeing Jay at his lowest point in Season 5, Matthew takes Jay to his home, cleans him up, and allows him to stay the night.
• Platonic Life-Partners: With Jessi.
• School Newspaper Newshound: He takes his role as the school morning news host very seriously.
• Secret Identity Vocal Shift: Downplayed. Matthew's "secret" is merely that he is gay. But he does noticeably deepen his voice when speaking to his father. He tells Jessi that he and his father have a "don't ask, don't tell" kind of situation going on regarding his sexuality. Although, given his vocal talent it is ambiguous if Matthew's Camp Gay voice is his real voice either since he seems to be able to change his voice very easily on a moment's notice.
• Surrounded by Idiots: He sees most people as inferior to him, be it by personality, intelligence or looks, with Jessi and Caleb being the only people he is remotely nice to.
  Matthew: These fucking people.
• Tempting Fate: He starts "My Furry Valentine" complaining how he is the only out gay kid he knows. By the end of the night, he meets another gay guy named Aiden and the two hit it off.
• Took a Level in Kindness: In season 2, after meeting an older gay man that has a much similar personality than him. The man advises Matthew to try to be nicer to others, or he may end up pushing everybody away. Matthew takes this to heart and during the sleepover, he tries to downplay his meanness by avoiding gossip and trash talks. Of course, by that time, a lot of people are still wary of him due to his past actions.
• Transparent Closet: Matthew puts no effort into hiding the fact that he is gay, although he assumed that it was a "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" kind of situation with his parents. It turns out that his father has known for a long time and just never felt the need to discuss it. But Matthew's mother was apparently in deep denial and reacts badly when she reads Matthew's texts with Aiden, and subsequently when Matthew comes out to her officially.
• The Unfavorite: Inverted. Maurice admits that Matthew is his favorite among the kids he has to watch.