For the main character entry, see HERE.
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Forty Quinn
Forty Quinn
Played by: James Scully (Adult), Anton Starkman (Teenager)
Love's troubled twin brother. An aspiring screen-writer who wastes his potential on parties and decadent living, knowing that his rich parents can look after him.
- Addled Addict: He's constantly in a cycle of abuse and relapse as the series goes on, including getting drunk at a house party, smoking crack at his parents' anniversary and downing enough alcohol and LSD to kill a cow while scriptwriting with Joe.
- Adaptational Heroism: In the book, he finds out the truth about Joe and is happy to keep it quiet providing that Joe writes screenplays for him for the rest of their lives, on top of being a sleazy manipulator. In the series, he is genuinely devoted to his sister Love's well-being and when he finds out the truth about Joe, he takes a gun to Joe in an attempt to protect Love from him.
- Adaptational Nice Guy: Joe despises him in the book, and while in the series he does describe him as an "adult baby" as someone who needs attention and love from everyone, and clings on tight to Love, he actually is a very sweet, protective brother deep down and his main creepy behaviour only comes out when he's high, while book-Forty is actually even more of a creep constantly.
- The Alcoholic: His love of booze only scratches the surface of his addiction, but it's definitely there.
- Ambiguously Bi: He's definitely into women, but he's also really attached to Joe. When he's on acid, he asks Joe if he'd fuck him.Forty: [handing Joe a flower] Give that to Delilah. And when you're fucking her... think of me.
- Beware the Nice Ones: He's a very fun and upbeat person. He was also fully prepared to kill Joe when he finds out about his true nature.
- Big Brother Instinct: Even though they're twins and Love functions as his protector for most part, Forty loses his love and respect for Joe the moment he connects the dots that Joe is a monster, and is prepared to kill Joe to protect Love.
- Camp Straight: Perhaps an Enforced Trope, as his actor is openly gay in real life. Forty loves to be dramatic, needs to be the center of attention, and will often achieve this through campy mannerisms. This is one of the reason he's an Ensemble Dark Horse.
- Can't Take Criticism: When Ellie says they should start the script over again, he runs away from their writing session, and goes and gets drunk.
- Cassandra Truth: He sobers up in the later episodes, trying to protect people from Joe, but he's dismissed because people think he's high or drunk.
- Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Although not a happy version, Forty is in deep denial and his self-absorption often causes him to behave this way, and even more so when he falls Off the Wagon.
- Crazy Jealous Guy: A platonic(-ish) version to Love. Some of the reason he likes Joe/Will so much is because Joe lets him come along.
- Deceased Fall-Guy Gambit: Joe and Love pin Henderson's and Candace's murders on him after he's shot by a police officer.
- Desperately Craves Affection: Love is the only person who truly cares about him, but Forty is desperate to befriend and impress everybody. Just look at how quickly he falls for "Amy Adam." This quote really says it all:Forty: God! Why can't I just meet, like, a nice girl like Jessica Alba, who won't lie to me, and who just wants to have my babies and love me forever? Like, is that is that too much to ask?
- Dies Differently in Adaptation: Forty gets hit by a car in the novel, but dies by being shot by a police officer in the series.
- Dumbass Has a Point: He's more right than he could ever know that Love is unfit to be a mother.
- Entitled Bastard: His relationship with Love and, eventually Joe, can be described as very needy. Forty needs to write a script for the movie he's making, but Joe is planning to leave LA forever. His response is to kidnap and drug him to work on the movie.
- Family Theme Naming: Like his sister, he is named after a tennis term. In his care, "Forty" refers to the highest amount one can score, symbolizing the Parental Favoritism of Forty over Love.
- Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: The "foolish" to Love's "responsible", even when it's revealed that he didn't kill their babysitter; she did. She's still always supposed to take care of him.
- Freudian Excuse: One of the reasons he needs Love to be his emotional crutch is because his parents have always coddled him when he was younger. A lot of his issues can also be traced back to the fact that a babysitter raped him when he was young, and his parents chose to cover it up, and didn't even bring him to counselling or anything. He still considers his abuser to be his "first love," and was further devastated by her death.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: Well, Love loves him a lot, but none of Love's other friends can stand him, and Joe can't either (although warming to him later).Joe: I will try my hardest to accept being in a damn thouple with your brother.
- Genki Guy: Forty is always going full force.
- Heroic Sacrifice: In his final scene, Forty prepares to shoot Joe in cold blood, ruining his relationship with Love and likely condemning himself to prison, in order to protect Love from Joe. Forty himself is shot dead before he could.
- Hidden Depths:
- Surprisingly, he is capable of writing a pretty good story, if he forces himself to focus and get real about his shortcomings as a writer. He wrote and directed a short film called The Third Twin that won a grand jury prize at Sundance. When working on an adaption of Beck's book, he's able to figure out what actually happened, suggesting some kind of insight.
- He's much more self-aware than he lets on. He's actually perfectly aware he's a trainwreck, and hates himself for it. He's also much more perceptive of Love's issues than she realized, though he doesn't realize just how deep that particular rabbit hole goes.
- Horrible Judge of Character: He has no idea something is off with "Amy Adam" aka Candace, misses the millions of red flags about both her and Joe, has no problem with Joe pretending to be Will and continues to want him and Love to get back together after that. Played With in regards to Love. He reveals he's well aware — more than she is, even — that she's just as screwed-up as he is, and bluntly points out she's not going to be a very good mother. However, he goes to his death unaware of just how right he is.
- Intergenerational Friendship: With Ellie. Also borders with Interclass Friendship.
- Jerkass Has a Point: An immature, self-destructive Attention Whore who does have the occasional insight.
- When Love gets angry at him for butting into her love life, he shoots back that she hired someone to spy on his girlfriend. Even Love can't deny his point.
- As his sister can also attest, both of their parents are assholes.
- In his final confrontation with Joe and Love, he angrily but accurately points out that his sister is just as messed up as him, she's just better at disguising her pain.
- He is also correct about the danger Joe poses, even towards Love.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He eventually reveals himself to be this. He's a clingy, annoying, needy drug addict who seriously gets on Joe's nerves, but he also genuinely loves Love, is pretty friendly to nearly everyone, and wants things to turn out well and is also aware of his own serious flaws and sincerely wants to improve.
- Keet: He's very energetic.
- Kick the Dog: While drinking in a bar, Forty is feeling sorry for himself because he wants a stable relationship and a "girl to love him forever". He pays $10,000 to a pair of newlyweds so he can kiss the bride. In front of their entire wedding party. Joe comments that he ruined their marriage before it even began.
- Lonely Rich Kid: While Love has a solid group of friends, Forty has no friends at all and is, in fact, very jealous of anything getting between him and Love. It's left ambiguous whether he wants it this way, since he does try to alienate Joe when Joe first tries to befriend him (because he wants Love to himself), but he is then very clingy towards Joe when Joe shows him affection.
- Love Hungry: Forty wants love from anyone, all the time, especially Love. Joe notes that he won't let go of him until he calls him a "genius".
- Manchild: He is an irresponsible addict who always relies on his family to bail him out of his messes.
- Mama's Boy: He refers to his mom as "his Gaia, his Isis". Deconstructed somewhat as he still knows his mother is very abusive and is visibly distraught when she hits Love in front of him.
- Misogyny: Joe — who himself has a rather messed-up view of women — finds his writing to be in poor taste due to the script he's working on concluding with every woman dying.
- My God, What Have I Done?: He's riddled with guilt because he believes he killed the au pair who molested him. Turns out that was actually Love.
- My Sister Is Off-Limits: He's suspicious of Joe's interest in his sister Love. He later becomes a Shipper on Deck, though, and actually turns this attitude towards Love's friend with benefits, Milo, until he finds out the truth about Joe's crimes.
- New-Age Retro Hippie: Zigzagged. He was raised in this culture by his parents, and the store he runs, Anavrin ("Nirvana" spelled backwards) revolves around fringe beliefs about organic health food, and he's internalized this to a much greater degree than his down-to-earth sister (his drink of choice is kombucha, for crying out loud). But as with most other things in his life this is inertia more than anything else; Love at one point tells Joe that his impulsive rant about ditching his parents' vegan clean-eating diet and ordering a bunch of Taco Bell is a typical sign he's about to go on a bender.
- Psychological Projection: While he won't admit it to himself, he wants to adapt Beck's book because he identifies with her and Nicky's Questionable Consent relationship. This is confirmed when he gets high and acts as Beck while he forces Joe to act as Dr Nicky and asks "Nicky" why he manipulated and took advantage of "Beck".
- Rape as Backstory: Love reveals to Joe that he was raped by their au pair. In disturbing Truth in Television, Forty refuses to recognize this as sexual assault and views her as his "first love".Love: My parents started Anavrin when we were like 13. And they hired this woman, Sofia. She was like 19. She was from Spain. The way Forty tells it, she was his first love. To this day, he does not acknowledge that it was abuse.
- Recovered Addict: At first, although Love goes through great stress to keep it that way.
- Romanticized Abuse: His take on what happened with the au pair.Forty: I was in love with Sofia, our au pair. My parents said I was too young, but I wasn't. I loved her. And she loved me. It wasn't just some dumb crush: it was love. When I found out she was seeing some college guy, I felt this rage inside of me; like an animal made of teeth and of fire.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: When he's in a jam, Forty's first course of action is to try to bribe the problem away.
- Sheep in Sheep's Clothing: Although he suspects he himself murdered his "first love" — his predatory babysitter — it turns out it was actually Love, and the only violence Forty commits throughout the whole series is when he tries to protect Love from Joe.
- Shipper on Deck: For Love and "Will", even expressing anger and jealousy about Love's relationship with Milo until he learns that Joe is a murderer.
- Stepford Smiler: Beneath the amiable, Upper-Class Twit persona, Forty is not a happy guy. He's traumatized by past sexual abuse and his Abusive Parents.
- Token Good Teammate: Downplayed. While he himself is far from perfect, he serves as one for the Quinn family.
- Undying Loyalty: For Love.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: His kidnapping of Joe sets of a chain reaction leading to the deaths of Delilah, Candace and Forty himself.
- Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Love describes him as talented and sweet when he was younger, until their au pair raped him.
- Upper-Class Twit: Despite his serious Hidden Depths, he does fall into this, being pretty ditzy and oblivious to the darkness between Love and Joe.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: As revealed in his parents' vow renewal, Forty longs for his dad's approval but is incapable of making them happy. Zigzagged as he's clearly messed up a lot in the past, but at the same time, this is at least part thanks to his parents' mean and abusive behaviour.
Delilah Alves
Delilah
Played by: Carmela Zumbado
Joe's new neighbor. A journalist who lives with her 15-year-old sister. She's got some issues from her past that make her distrustful of others.
- Adaptational Badass: In the book, she is a Satellite Love Interest (at best) who is just used for sex by Joe, reduced to a Running Gag, and is Too Dumb to Live. In the series, she is a strong-willed survivor and feminist journalist who was previously sexually assaulted by Henderson and manages to expose him for it under great pressure, and a very protective big sister who genuinely loves her sister and will go to great lengths to protect her.
- Aesop Collateral Damage: Was actually not meant to die — Joe never intended her to be harmed and was actually shocked by Love's account of what took place. Her death even provides a
Moral Event Horizon for Love and a My God, What Have I Done? moment for Joe. - Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: Although a heroic version, Delilah is naturally very abrasive and sharp-tongued.
- The Big Board: She has a cork board for possible leads in the Henderson case.
- Big Sister Instinct: She won't let anyone harm Ellie, though she naturally fears it after being sexually exploited by Henderson.
- Curiosity Killed the Cast: Would very likely still be alive had she not become suspicious after Fincher's own suspicion.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Reveals to Joe that she was sexually assaulted by Henderson. Her dad is dead and her mom abandoned her and Ellie.
- Does Not Like Men: Delilah distrusts men due to her history with Henderson. She half-jokingly snarks about the “patriarchy” and Joe being “woke” and initially dismisses Joe’s advice to publish her story as mansplaining.
- Ethical Slut: Delilah has casual sex with David and Joe (that we see) and is pretty forthright about it, but she is also one of the most moral characters.
- Friends with Benefits: She and her police pal, David Fincher. She later develops this relationship with Joe after he's sad about a breakup.
- Gut Feeling: Has a bad feeling about Joe in the beginning which unfortunately turns out to be true.
- Hero Antagonist: Although not to the level of Candace, she falls into this by being well-intentioned about taking down perverts, but her curiosity makes her antagonistic to Joe. She eventually finds out about Joe's murder of Henderson and Joe traps her in the glass cage.
- Idiot Ball: Finding Joe's storage locker and wandering around long enough for him to find her and lock her in the cage, instead of running out of there and making sure David Fincher picked up her call.
- Intrepid Reporter: She makes it her life mission to expose Henderson as gross pervert with a penchant for underage kids.
- Jerkass Has a Point:
- Her original Gut Feeling about Joe being a creep turn out to be more true than she realized.
- In a sad moment of reality, the reason why she never spoke up about her sexual abuse — she knows that testimony alone wouldn't get her anywhere, since Henderson is famous, rich, and well-loved. If she did, she loses credibility as a journalist for not having brought it up previously, as though she were chasing headlines.
- While stuck in Joe's cage, Delilah angrily states that Joe has a "fucked up" view on friendship. She's not wrong.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Despite her sharp personality, she just wants to do what's right, and her main goal is to take down a pedophile.
- Rape as Backstory: She was sexually exploited by Henderson.
- Rape and Revenge: She wants her revenge on Henderson.
- Parental Substitute: To her sister Ellie.
- Promotion to Parent: Her and Ellie's father is dead and their mother isn't in the picture, hence why Delilah is raising Ellie now.
- Sour Outside, Sad Inside: From being sexually exploited by Henderson.
- Spicy Latina: People wouldn't exactly describe her as chill.
Ellie Alves
Ellie
Played by: Jenna Ortega
Delilah's teenage sister. Street-smart and outgoing, and hopes to one day become a film director.
- Adorably Precocious Child: One of the reasons Joe continually decides to help her out.
- Annoying Younger Sibling: For Delilah and a proxy for Joe. Delilah loves her a lot but Ellie's conviction that she's smarter than she thinks she is and refuses to believe anything Delilah says about Henderson, which leaves her right in danger's way.
- Bratty Half-Pint: Although older than your standard example, Joe treats her like this because he accurately assesses her as a kid.
- Bratty Teenage Daughter: Technically she's Delilah's younger sister, but Delilah is her parent surrogate so the trope still applies.
- Contrasting Sequel Main Character: To Paco, as they are both Hispanic children who act as Morality Pets to Joe in their respective seasons. Paco is a young boy who likes books like Joe while Ellie is a teenage girl and a major movie lover with little interest in reading. Paco was aware of how dangerous his mother's abusive cop boyfriend was while Ellie was largely ignorant of Henderon being a pedophile until later on. Paco remains unaware of Joe's darker nature, believes that the latter saved him, and they part ways amicably; Ellie may not know all the details but she's aware enough that "Will" isn't the man she thought, angrily states he ruined her life, and while he continues to bankroll her entire life, they are not on good terms.
- Cooldown Hug: She freaks out over losing Delilah and Joe gives her one to help calm her down.
- Daddy's Girl: Ellie even refers to her father as her "best friend".
- Dark and Troubled Past: Comes from a broken home.
- Fille Fatale: A very realistic example; she thinks she's much more mature than she is, as Joe sees, and she's partly so precocious because she's being groomed by Henderson.
- Final Girl: With her sister and everyone else dead, she ends up being the only surviving supporting character by the end.
- Horrible Judge of Character: A realistic example as she's fifteen. Ellie likes Joe and loves hanging out with Henderson. One of those is a murderer and the other is planning to rape her.
- Little Miss Snarker: Oh, yes. Fifteen-year-old Ellie's got a mouth on her.
- Morality Pet: To Joe for this season. She's like a stand-in for Paco.
- The Movie Buff: Ellie constantly references movies in all her appearances, often spouting off lots of them. She also hopes to one day become a filmmaker, and has apparently even made her own short film that she shows to Henderson before he tries to rape her and ends up getting killed by Joe.
- My Sister Is Off-Limits: She is very outspoken about her opposition to Joe and Delilah's on-and-off relationship.
- Nice Girl: Snarky as she can be, Ellie is basically good and very sweet-natured.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: When Delilah goes missing, Ellie goes from her usual extroverted self to a nervous wreck. Given that Delilah is dead, she's right to be scared.
- Put on a Bus: Literally. Joe puts her on one at the end and bankrolls her lifestyle.
- Replacement Goldfish: For Paco. She even lives in Joe's apartment building like Paco did.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: While working as Joe and Forty's writing assistant, she criticises their finished script, not knowing Joe desperately needs to flee the country and is being held hostage until he produces the script. This prolongs their scriptwriting, allows Joe to reconcile with Love and leads to Love killing Candace and Delilah and Forty getting shot. Had she just kept quiet, Joe and Delilah would have both been able to escape.
- Wise Beyond Their Years: Ellie is incredibly smart for a 15 year old, which is why Joe and Forty take an immediate liking to her. Deconstructed somewhat, as while she's clever, she's not as grown-up or streetwise as she thinks, and is painfully oblivious to the fact that Hendy is grooming her for sexual abuse.
- Women Are Wiser: Unlike Paco who blindly obeyed Joe, indirectly causing Beck's death, Ellie was rightfully upset at him for causing her to lose Delilah and does not agree with his actions at all and calls him out for it.
Will Bettelheim
"William Bettelheim"
Played by: Robin Lord Taylor
A computer genius who is about to help Joe hide his identity when he arrives in LA, and who gets kidnapped by Joe and held in a storage unit.
- Ballistic Discount: Infosec variant. When Joe is demanding a completely clean slate identity he can start fresh with, Will admonishes him that such a thing takes years of hard work and patience to accomplish, and starts bragging about how carefully designed his "Will Bettelheim" identity was, allowing him to have a clean criminal record, solid credit and unbroken work history while not being tied in any way to his real face or other identifying physical information. In other words, he makes it clear that the solution to all of Joe's problems is just bludgeoning him the moment his back is turned and stealing his wallet, and then has the audacity to be surprised when that's exactly what he does.
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Eccentricities aside, he is a good hacker.
- Can't Kill You, Still Need You: It seems like just offing the original Will is in Joe's best interests — after all, he made sure there can be no connection made between his body and the Bettelheim identity — but Joe is smart enough to know that Will might have baggage he still needs to know about. Of course, this being the only reason he's not dead yet hardly encourages Will to be fully forthcoming.
- Cloud Cuckoolander: A brilliant hacker who dedicates his whole life to living off the grid, and who even takes being kidnapped by Joe in his stride. Partly justified by the fact that he is diagnosed with severe bipolar disorder, but his friendliness with Joe takes it beyond just this trope.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Unlike most other characters trapped by Joe, Will is actually released and makes to to Manila to be with his Internet girlfriend.
- Girlfriend in Canada: Will is obsessed with his Long-Distance Relationship with a woman in the Philippines he's never physically met, to the point of putting himself dangerously in debt to Jasper to send her all his money. Joe lampshades how ironic this is, coming from a criminal who makes his living from secrets and lies. Surprisingly, she turns out to be entirely on the level and as soon as Will is free to join her they become Happily Married.
- Hero of Another Story: Will has a range of very impressive talents and a dark past, both of which are largely out of focus due to him being held in a cage.
- Horrible Judge of Character: He sincerely believes that Joe is a good person deep down and seems to want to form a closer friendship with him. This is after Joe kidnapped him and stole his identity.
- A Match Made in Stockholm: Joe kidnaps Will and steals his identity. He keeps Will in a cage for a while, not sure what to do with him. Will genuinely likes Joe as the episodes go on. When Joe lets Will go, Will does not inform the cops even though he had every opportunity to do so. He goes to Manila to live with his long-distance internet girlfriend, and sends Joe postcards. They even video-chat once, with Will giving Joe advice.Joe's inner monologue: Oh! See that? Living proof. I have let people out of the cage, made friends, even, from the experience.
- Mood-Swinger: For good reason — he's severely bipolar.
- Mr. Smith: "William Bettelheim" isn't his real name either, and he reveals to Joe that his entire legal identity has been carefully constructed to be as boring and forgettable as possible to keep him safe from his Dark and Troubled Past. Partially subverted, in that Joe finds that people do notice the conspicuously Germanic name "Bettelheim", pointing out he shares a surname with the author of The Uses of Enchantment
and commenting that it sounds like a Nazi name and asking if he's a self-hating Jew. - Nice Guy: Aside from his bipolar episodes, is a generally pleasant person. He even thinks the best of someone like Joe, despite getting kidnapped and impersonated by him.
- Properly Paranoid: Launches into an unhinged rant about "Them" coming to look for him when he enters his manic phase. It sounds like it's the mental illness talking, but then again there is at least one shady character who really is looking for him, and turns out to be the kind of guy who chops off fingers to make a point.
- But also subverted, in that Will seems to have sometimes been bizarrely impulsive and reckless about things he should have been paranoid about. Joe lampshades this, pointing out it was hardly professional of him to make himself vulnerable to identity theft from an amateur like Joe in the first place, and considering it comically obvious his girlfriend in Manila is a tawdry scammer. Then again, the man is bipolar.
- Weirdness Coupon: He's the only person to survive Joe's cage as of yet, at least partly because he's so quirky and calm about it on top of his clear mental illness.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Says as much to Joe on a few occasions, expressing the belief that he is a mostly good person.
Henderson
Joshua "Henderson" Bunter
Played by: Chris D'Elia
A stand-up comedian that Delilah has a vendetta against.
- Adam Westing: Hendy is an exaggerated version of Chris D'Elia's real life persona as a scruffy, irreverent Deadpan Snarker-style comedian with a narrow but intense cult following among "comedy geeks".
- Ambiguous Syntax: Whether Hendy was ranting about Love Quinn or the concept of love in general when captured by Joe is unknown.
- Asshole Victim: His death was an accident, but considering he was about to drug a 15-year-old so he could rape her, it's kind of hard to find any tragedy in it.
- Bait the Dog: He looks after Ellie and is helping her to break into the film industry. No, he's grooming her so he can sexually abuse her at a later date.
- Deadpan Snarker: He's a stand-up comedian, so it's a given. The only joke he's ever shown telling is essentially just him saying he hates Love Actually.
- Dirty Coward: He's been raping defenseless girls at his own home, but when he's in danger and defenseless, he's reduces to pathetically pleading for his life and flees the first chance he breaks out of Joe's captivity.
- Ephebophile: Delilah suspects him of molesting her when she was 17 due to some suspicious circumstances. Joe finds out that he keeps photos of unconscious minors in states of undress and was planning on doing the same to Ellie.
- Faux Affably Evil: Henderson acts cool, friendly, and confident even when Joe has him cornered... but make no mistake, he's a rapist who uses that affability to get away with it.
- Freudian Excuse: He claims that his ephebophilia is a result on having been molested in childhood himself, though it's implied that he was only lying.
- Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: Regardless on whether or not Henderson's traumatic past is actually true, Joe doesn't think that this excuses his behavior for one second — and, Joe's hypocrisy aside, the audience is inclined to agree.
- Hate Sink: One of the biggest examples in the show. He is a pedophilic rapist who has molested Delilah when she was 17, planned on doing the same to her sister Ellie who is 15, and has done the same to several other teenage girls.
- Inspirationally Disadvantaged: He's a survivor of testicular cancer, which gives him sympathy on top of the adoration he gains from being a celebrity.
- Nice Guy: As bemused and disgusted as Joe is with the showbiz world Henderson lives in, even he ends up having to admit he's a surprisingly decent guy for a wealthy celebrity — he's actually taken aback by how far Hendy is willing to go to be kind to Forty when Forty violently disrupts his party while on a bender. It reaches the point where it seems like Joe and Delilah — and the audience — might have read him wrong and he's not a predator after all. Sadly, no — Delilah's suspicions are completely correct and Hendy's kindness and patience with people like Forty is just an act to hide his true unsavory nature.
- "Not So Different" Remark: He may just be grasping at straws to save his life in his final speech, but he's right — other than the fact that Joe doesn't go after underage girls, he and Joe are way more similar than Joe is willing to admit. They're both damaged, warped men who put up a big show of being generous, self-sacrificing Nice Guys as overcompensation for their darker desires. While Joe doesn't directly drug and molest the objects of his lust like Hendy, he does invade their privacy, manipulate them into relationships through deceit, and murder them, and unlike Hendy he can't even bring himself to admit what he does is wrong.
- Only One Name: Goes by just "Henderson" as a stage name, "Hendy" to his friends. His real name turns out not to have "Henderson" in it at all — he's Joshua Bunter.
- Perma-Stubble: A prominent part of Hendy's Seriously Scruffy working-class image, which very visibly contrasts The Beautiful Elite always sucking up to him. (A trait he shares with Chris D'Elia in Real Life.) Joe, who happens never to have heard of Hendy before, finds the mob of autograph seekers chasing a guy who looks like a burned-out drug dealer at the airport surreal.
- Playing the Victim Card: He tries to save himself by saying that being supposedly molested by his stfather made him an ephebophile in an effort to garner sympathy for Joe. He also claims he can tell that Joe carries the damage of childhood trauma himself in another bid for sympathy; that also doesn't work.
- Rape as Backstory: He mentions to Joe that he was molested by his father. Whether it is true or if he's just lying to save his skin remains uncertain
- Villain Has a Point: As detestable as his actions to Delilah and his other victims were, he makes a valid point about Joe — He's no hero. And while Joe is no pedophile, he is a predatory man who shows no regards towards his victims. He's also very right about Love being a phony.
- Villain with Good Publicity: He sexually abused Delilah, who suspects that he would never suffer any consequence due to being a famous white guy with a history of cancer while she's a Latin-American nobody that anyone would assume was using him as a meal ticket.
Gabe, Sunrise & Lucy
Gabe Miranda, Sunrise Cummings & Lucy Sprecher
From left to right: Sunrise, Lucy, and Gabe
Love's best friends.
- Camp Gay: Gabe is a male-leaning pansexual guy with soft mannerisms and an all-female friend group.Forty: Mostly dates men, but does something I'm not going to try to pronounce, that's essentially... fingering women to orgasm on a pile of yoga pillows packaged as a spiritual practice.
- Gay Best Friend: All three of them are LGBT+ and serve as a friend group for season 2's heroine Love, who is at most bi-curious.
- Greek Chorus: Although they don't break the fourth wall, they play this role for Love and, later, Joe—Gabe especially. They provide sounding boards for Love and Joe to talk about their relationship and discuss Love's previous marriage.
- Happily Married: Sunrise and Lucy are partners with a child. They're not officially married, though, and they're planning a wedding during season 2.
- Living Lie Detector: Gabe—by his own description—has a fantastic bullshit detector. Joe has to choose his words very carefully around him.
- Magical Negro: Downplayed. Gabe doesn't appear to have any supernatural powers (and, if he did, it would be a huge Genre Shift) but he describes himself as having an "excellent bullshit detector" and Joe is genuinely concerned about this. When performing acupuncture on Joe, he is able to immediately sense when Joe is lying and Joe seems genuinely afraid of him for that reason.
- Nice Guy: Weirdness aside, the three are genuinely supportive friends to Love and Joe.
- Nice Mean And In Between: Sunrise is easily the nicest and most supportive of the trio, while Lucy is initially judgemental of Joe but comes to accept him and Gabe falls somewhere in between.
- Put on a Bus: The three of them don't appear at all in season 3 since Joe and Love have moved away from LA, though a glance at Love's phone shows that they are still in contact with her. This is part of what makes Love susceptible to suburban ennui and loneliness.
- Satellite Character: Neither Sunrise or Lucy are as important to the plot as Gabe, and both of them just mostly exist to show Love what a happy relationship looks like. Though Love remains in contact with them, they don't appear at all in season three.
- Sickening Sweethearts: Although they have clearly been together for a long time, Sunrise and Lucy are very much in love.
- Token Black Friend: The black Gabe is Love's best friend, and there isn't much to his character beyond that.
- Twofer Token Minority: Gabe is both black and pansexual, Lucy is racially ambiguous, and she and Sunrise (a plus-sized woman) are in a serious relationship. Their roles are basically to give Love a friend group.
- Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: Sunrise and Lucy have a toddler named Candle.
David Fincher
David Fincher
Played by: Danny Vasquez
A cop that Delilah is sleeping with.
- Big Damn Heroes: He shoots and kills Forty just before Forty is about to do the same to Joe.
- Crazy Jealous Guy: Downplayed. He doesn't get violent or even aggressive but is notably miffed when he discovers that Delilah is hooking up with Joe.
- Dogged Nice Guy: He and Delilah are friends with benefits, but there's hints that he wants to be more than that.
- Friends with Benefits: Has this relationship with Delilah, but is implied to want to be in an official relationship.
- Good Counterpart: To Ron from the first season. Both are cops in a relationship with Joe's neighbour, but Ron is a violent alcoholic who imposes on Claudia while David is a decent person that is little more than a fuck-buddy to Delilah.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He gets annoyed when he learns that Delilah is hooking up with Joe and later tries to arrest Ellie, but he does care about Delilah.
- Inspector Javert: He appears occasionally to disrupt Joe's plans, sometimes when he's actually trying to do right by others. He also later suspects Ellie of Henderson's murder.
- Last-Name Basis: Usually addressed as "Fincher", even by Delilah.
- Minority Police Officer: He is the only police officer who makes a significant impact on the plot, and he's Latino.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: He shoots Forty before he could kill Joe, allowing Joe to continue killing.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Stopping Forty from killing Joe would allow Joe to continue to kill.
Jasper Krenn
Jasper Krenn
Played by: Steven W. Bailey
A shady guy Will (the real one) owes money to.
- Asshole Victim: Joe kills him in self-defense.
- Even Evil Has Standards: He's a little creeped out upon finding out that Joe has his own personal dungeon.
- Fat Bastard: Joe says he looks more like he should be running a comic book store than loan-sharking.
- Faux Affably Evil: He comes across as very friendly...while chopping off fingers.
- Villain Has a Point: Jasper wasn't entirely wrong when he states that "Will" needs psychiatric help.
Ray & Dottie Quinn
Ray & Dottie Quinn
Played by: Michael Reilly Burke (Ray), Saffron Burrows (Dottie)
Forty and Love's parents.
- Abusive Parents: They treat their children like little more than objects, covered up Forty's rape, and outright hit them in public.
- Alcoholic Mom: Dottie becomes an alcoholic in Season 3 and she's an Abusive Mom.
- Expy: Dottie is one of Lucille Bluth and Malory Archer - she's passive-aggressive, alcoholic, abusive, neglectful, and narcissistic.
- Faux Affably Evil: Joe remarks that Dottie can make blatant threats sound warm and welcoming.
- For the Evulz: It seems like Ray loves to torture his son Forty emotionally just to spite and hurt him for sadistic fun.
- Hands-Off Parenting: Although, when they are parenting, they're very abusive, they're mostly not around.
- Happy Marriage Charade: Ray is cheating on Dottie and both of them are cruel and callous. They've given up on it and divorced by Season 3.
- Hate Sink: They're truly awful people with no redeeming or sympathetic traits.
- Hippie Parents: An Informed Attribute. We don't see them do anything particularly hippyish, but they do hold their vow renewal among yurts.
- Ice Queen: Dottie is very cold to pretty much everyone but Forty, especially Love.
- Incest Subtext: Dottie kisses Forty on the lips while he's complimenting her.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Some of Dottie's comments about Love, that she is sabotaging her own life out of nothing but self-destructive boredom and calling out her immaturity, are not totally off the mark.
- Kick the Dog: They're both pretty awful to their children and seem to take pleasure in that fact.
- Laser-Guided Karma: While the jury's still somewhat out on Ray, Dottie at least gets some very justified doses of this come Season 3. Her and Ray's divorce completely upends both their finances and assets, leading her to grow progressively more angry and unhinged throughout the season as a result (culminating in her drunkenly burning down an entire vineyard in the dead of night after abducting her infant grandson). Love understandably permanently cuts ties with her and forbids her from ever seeing her or Henry again.
- Mrs. Robinson: Dottie is not shy about showing her...appreciation for Joe. It's possible that she was testing him to find out if he was loyal to Love, but she probably would've slept with him either way.
- My Beloved Smother: Dottie is very affectionate towards Forty and still treats him like a kid well into adulthood.
- Narcissist: While Dottie will coddle Forty if he pushes her openly, they're both almost totally indifferent to their kids' problems and ignored and covered up Forty's rape simply because it wasn't convenient.
- Never My Fault: Ray seems to enjoy pointing out all of Forty's flaws and failures but never wonders if his own mistreatment and never getting him any help after he was assaulted by his sitter and making him believe he'd killed her might have played a role in that.
- Outliving One's Offspring: Forty dies at the end of season two and Love at the end of season three but they are both still alive.
- Parental Favouritism: Dottie clearly favors Forty over Love, so much so that she blames Love for his outburst and slaps her. It's seemingly the reverse with Ray, who belittles Forty when he asks him for a loan but seems to get along with Love.
- Put on a Bus: Ray doesn't appear at all in season 3, despite Dottie playing a fairly important role. It is later explained that Love has cut ties with him due to his and Dottie's acrimonious divorce.
- Rich Bitch: Dottie especially qualifies, but both Ray and Dottie exploit their wealth to do whatever they want.
- Silver Vixen: Dottie is old enough to have a grandchild but still very attractive and glamorous. She even refers to herself as a "Glamma" on social media.
- Statuesque Stunner: Dottie. Being played by Saffron Burrows makes her this by default.
- Stepford Smiler: Dottie especially always smiles over her husband's many infidelities, but neither Dottie or Ray are prepared to acknowledge how fucked up Forty is, providing to leave it all to Love.
- Villain with Good Publicity: They make a point of appearing to be a loving and progressive minded couple.
Milo Warrington
Milo Warrington
Played by: Andrew Creer
Love's rebound boyfriend.
- The Ace: Lampshaded thoroughly by Joe, who points out that guys as perfect as him don't exist outside of rom-coms.
- Awesome Aussie: Is this cliché through and through.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Milo comes off as a caring, sensitive man but is a sneaky, Opportunistic Bastard who does Kick the Dog moments.
- Brutal Honesty: Something he and Love both appreciate in each other is honesty. Then he gets a little too honest about Forty and they're done.
- Jerkass Has a Point: His complaints of Forty's Manchild nature has its points.
- Kick the Dog:
- Forty provokes Milo into insulting him within earshot of Love. When Joe tries to calm things, Milo insults him as well.
- Complaining about Love being too focused on Forty? Valid. Saying that if she wasn't, she might have noticed her husband was sick sooner? Too far.
- The Loins Sleep Tonight: Something Forty accuses him off, although he might just be making it up.Forty: I wonder what James—your best friend—is thinking, sitting up in heaven, watching you fingerbang his wife cause you can't keep your dick hard.
- Mr. Fanservice: He's in very good shape, causing Joe to quip about his "Avengers body."
- Opportunistic Bastard: Forty notes that he's been sniffing around Love ever since college just waiting to catch her when she's single.
- Romancing the Widow: According to Forty, he started attempts at this at Love's husband's funeral.
- Romantic False Lead: To almost comical levels. He's a buff handsome suitor to Love that has little characterization outside of being a rival for Joe.
Luna, Haley and Moira
Luna, Haley and Moira
Joe's three blind dates after he breaks up with Love.- The Alcoholic: Moira seems to be a good match for Joe, being erudite and interested in Hemingway and Bukowski. Then she starts hitting the bottle and sobbing as she recite poetry.
- Asian Airhead: Luna is the only one of the trio not to mention her literary interests, only wanting to date someone who does (granted, Haley's "Four Hour Workweek" doesn't impress Joe either). She then spends the rest of the date making Joe take photos of her.
- No Sense of Personal Space: Midway into their date, Haley asks Joe about his fetishes. She then suddenly smooches Joe and suggests that they fuck in a hotel room.
- Only One Name: Only their first names are given, and only in the credits.
- Token Minority: Luna is Joe's only Asian love interest.
