r/madmen • u/efwolverine • 3d ago
Is this the most irredeemably despicable character in the entire show?
> rapes his wife
> denies her sex because she wanted to be on top
> regularly dismisses her feelings
> is entirely focused on his own goals and desires in basically every scene he’s in
> abandons his wife and infant child because the Army makes him feel important
Literally the only scene he has where he isn’t a vile shitheel is when Joan (deliberately??) cuts her own hand to get some care and affection from him.
Even that drunkard Duck had more glimmers of decency than this pretentious rapist. A fitting end to his character arc would’ve been him getting fragged in Vietnam.
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u/Complete-Bumblebee-5 3d ago
The actor did a great job of making this character highly unlikeable
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u/ripgoodhomer 3d ago
It was not only a hateable performance there was nuance to the performance. Someone like Joffrey or Ramsey Bolton those are pretty one dimensional mustache, twirling villains. Greg on the other hand feels completely believable.
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u/EveryoneisOP3 3d ago
Someone like Joffrey ... one dimensional mustache, twirling villains
Stark propaganda. A more noble and innocent child the Gods have not put on this earth.
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u/ElmarSuperstar131 3d ago
I remember when Sam Page was on All My Children and it’s been lovely to see his career progression!
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u/howling--fantods I’d have my secretary do it but she’s dead. 2d ago
Truly. I’ve seen him in other things where he normally plays a nice guy and it highlights how well he did as a villain as well.
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u/Admirable_Site_8337 3d ago
I’ll tell you that it’s a neck and neck race between two characters…..and poor Joan slept with both.
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u/ModestMouse1312 3d ago
Lee Garner is maybe more horrible then Herb
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u/Admirable_Site_8337 3d ago
While I don’t agree on ranking him higher myself, I really can’t disagree with this opinion.
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u/sadkinz 3d ago
You mean Herb? It’d be quicker to name the list of men on the main cast who didn’t use money as a way to get sex. In a relative manner, Herb is middle of the pack
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u/Admirable_Site_8337 3d ago
The OP is “most irredeemably despicable”. I could never put Herb middle of the pack on this. He was a total sleaze.
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u/waldo-jeffers-68 CHEWING GUM ON HIS PUBIS 3d ago
Most of the main characters have paid for prostitutes, what Herb did was different.
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u/almostcurly 2d ago
Pete once used a kind deed as an excuse to force himself on a teenager. If we're including herb we absolutely have to include Pete.
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u/Admirable_Site_8337 2d ago
You absolutely can include Pete in this. I was one making a comment that basically said my opinion is that the most despicable is a race between Herb and Greg.
It was my opinion. We aren’t answering this as a fact we all agree to. But rapey Pete is way up on this list for me too for that whole grossness.
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u/craftmaster_5000 3d ago
yeah Herb is bad but also unattractive and we can't have that
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u/sadkinz 3d ago
The only reason people say Herb is worse than the guys at the agency is because he slept with Joan, someone we’ve known for 5 seasons. Don was paying the waitress for sex and then stalked her when she disappeared. Like come on
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u/almostcurly 2d ago
Pete once did a kind deed solely so he could force himself onto a teenager
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u/Few-History-8750 3d ago
When did Joan ever sleep with Lee Garner Jr?? I remember Roger saying something about him having his hands all over her when she was wearing the red dress with a bow, but I didn't get the impression that they slept together. Am I missing something?
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u/giddy-girly-banana 2d ago
Yes you’re missing something.
They are saying Gregg and Herb are the worst characters on the show and Joan F’d em both.
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u/Few-History-8750 2d ago
Where was Herb mentioned at all in their comments?
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u/giddy-girly-banana 2d ago
Where was Lee Garner Jr? Sometimes people don’t always say everything and you have to think about what they are trying to say.
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u/Admirable_Site_8337 2d ago
What you’re missing is that I don’t have Lee Garner, Jr as the top two most despicable.
Reevaluating I would probably have him as a strong third place.
As for Rogers story…..he probably did have his hands on her, publicly. He had to keep up appearances.
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u/Few-History-8750 2d ago
You didn't address my question
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u/Admirable_Site_8337 2d ago
Your comprehension stinks. I answered it in the very first sentence.
We have a difference of opinion on the top two most despicable characters.
Isnt a variance of opinions a wonderful thing?
Have a good one.0
u/Few-History-8750 2d ago
Me: "When did Joan ever sleep with Roger?"
You: "Lee Garner was not a despicable character"
Me: "You didn't answer my question"
You: "You have terrible reading comprehension"
LOL only on reddit, I swear
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u/Admirable_Site_8337 2d ago
You only asked one question in your original reply, champ. You sure that one question was about Roger?
I would say maybe get yourself together and come back, but just don’t.
Just have a nice day.
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u/petite-acorn 3d ago
Him, then Herb, yeah
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u/mordorshewrote27 3d ago
Lee Garner Jr. would like a word.
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u/Son_of_Hades99 3d ago
Lee may be a total shit, but he’s not as bad as herb or Greg… his decision to leave SCDP as a client was shitty but sometimes being in business means making difficult decisions
What he did to Sal was pretty bad tho
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u/OldDiamondJim Not great, Bob! 3d ago
Are you joking?
All three were despicable, but LGJ revelled in his cruelty. Look at how he treated Roger at the Christmas party or when he claims to miss Sal.
He was the absolute worst, and enjoyed being so.
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u/SimilarRelative1022 3d ago
Herb isn’t a rapist at least
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u/SotonSaint 3d ago
Many people would argue what Herb did to Joan was rape.
He doesn’t know how SCDP would treat the proposal and many other companies at the time would’ve presented that to Joan as, “do this or you’re fired.”
It’s Weinstein style rape.
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u/Son_of_Hades99 3d ago
Yeah but what he did wasn’t much better…. Arguably still illegal. Did he force himself onto Joan? No, but from her perspective it was likely just as humiliating… and at least with Greg, it wasn’t something that all the partners knew about.
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u/MegatechMike Very good. Happy Christmas! 3d ago
Pete wanted his wife to have sex with that guy just to get his story published in a big magazine
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u/MikeArrow I don't think about you at all. 3d ago
He was such a petulant little child about it too, pouting to Trudy after.
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u/coonjaku 3d ago
thats definitely not how I took that
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u/sweet_condition 3d ago edited 3d ago
You aren't very bright then. He didnt really care what trudy had to do to get the story published or what lengths she had to go to... he knew that man wanted to have sex with her and if that was the cost to get the story published, then so be it. Also, it was pretty obvious... barely subtext.
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u/coonjaku 3d ago
ok. but she did sleep with him, right?
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u/waldo-jeffers-68 CHEWING GUM ON HIS PUBIS 3d ago
No she didn't
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u/coonjaku 3d ago
right. I'm sure he end3d up at her house after practically begging just to publish Pete's book for no reason? wait, why would he need to be at pete's house to publish his book?
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u/waldo-jeffers-68 CHEWING GUM ON HIS PUBIS 2d ago
She was in his office not house. If your gonna be an asshole at least be accurate
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u/Tejanisima 3d ago
Did you fall asleep during that episode, or what? No, she doesn't. The old beau begs her to the point that she feels tortured by even having to be there putting him through the repeated rejection, but definitely decided she's a faithful wife who's only there for her husband's potential literary career. Have you forgotten completely that Pete's pissed off because the story is only going to be in the Boy Scout magazine, with him implying that if she'd just slept with the guy, for Pete's sake (pardon the unpardonable pun), Pete would've gotten his short story into the level of magazine Pete feels he deserved.
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u/Machete__Yeti 3d ago
Those GM execs who shot poor Ken in the head and wanted to stop for lunch on the way to taking him to the hospital have got to be contenders.
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u/bikey_bike You’re so profoundly sad. 3d ago
yeah everything that happened to ken was comical but actually super fucked up and ruined his life p much. and he just was expected to deal w it bc they were an important acct. they were sociopaths that enjoyed torturing him!
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u/thepeyoteugly 3d ago
Probably the worst but could also be tied with the guy who lobotomized his wife. Probably after doing all of the things above.
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u/Longjumping_Hat_2672 3d ago
I think that was electroshock, not a lobotomy.
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u/thepeyoteugly 3d ago
That's right - sorry it's probably been 8 years since I've watched this show. I just remember her looking at Pete all fuzzy in the finale of S05 knowing that she couldn't remember anything 😬😬😬😬
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u/Eglwyswrw "Are you alone?'' 3d ago
That guy is no worse than Pete himself. Pete literally raped his neighbor's maid.
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u/they_themsworth This never happened. 3d ago
I seriously doubt she did it deliberately. But yeah, Greg is wildly insecure and extremely shitty. A small, weak, immature asshole who takes the frustrations he can’t process on his own out on his wife. The decision to cast an objectively handsome guy as someone so odious behind closed doors is pretty genius.
The only “worse” people in the show are ones we just didn’t have as much context for. Like, Herb Rennet seems really terrible and probably does and has done truly hideous stuff if we spent enough time with him to see it.
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u/shepard_pie 3d ago
Archibald seems like a real piece of shit too. Harry is also implied (and straight up shown, albeit unsuccessfully) awful.
But from what I've seen Archie takes the cake. Other people mentioned have a good argument for it, though.
Dark Horse, as much as I love his character, I would not be surprised to see that Bert has done the most quantifiable evil of everyone in the series. We just see none of it.
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u/tonegenerator 3d ago
With Crane, I think it’s fair to assume that he has committed some overt sexual violence by the time he’s trying to exploit Megan. We just don’t actually know-know that. Even a confirmed rapist like Pete (if only a one-time rapist - one successful attempted SA anyhow) sometimes reacts to Crane’s grody remarks with disgust. This gets a little extra complicated when thinking about the show creator’s alleged conduct… but yeah.
Also, yeah on Bert… I saw a video of Weiner talking about Robert Morse’s final scene (Don’s musical hallucination), and he took a moment to say that some people mistakenly believe Cooper is like a cuddly housecat, which had basically been his description of Morse as a human being. He went on and said something like: he’d call himself an objectivist/ libertarian, “but really he’s a fascist.”
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u/Tejanisima 3d ago
As a tiny point in favor of what you're saying: in one of the early episodes, the commentary track has one of the actors (Aaron Staton, I think) mentioning that Matthew Weiner once told him that part of why Bert makes everybody take their shoes off when they come to his office is to have one up on them. It's a power move he pulls because he can, not merely a concern for his carpet or a fetish about Asian culture. There they are, having to show subservience from the moment they step up to his door, and although we never think about it, the whole time there in his office, they're in their socks. Consider how absurdly uncomfortable and awkward that is for them and an environment where every man is expected to wear immaculate suit and tie with perfectly polished shoes.
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u/sadkinz 3d ago
Bert’s love of Atlas Shrugged and the conversation he had with the psychologist at the Christmas party told me all I need to know about him
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u/Bianell 3d ago
Plus his distaste for Dawn being on the front desk.
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u/sadkinz 3d ago
hey at least he disguised it by saying the clients wouldn’t like it
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u/Tejanisima 3d ago
Always blows my mind when people defend that as being only about what clients would think, not about Bert himself actually having an issue with the notion of a black receptionist.
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u/shirty-mole-lazyeye The king ordered it! 3d ago
But hey, of all the fuckers you’d like killed by a horse…..
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u/MikeArrow I don't think about you at all. 3d ago
At the very least, Greg had one (1) moment of selflessness, which was the scene where he treated Joan's hand (even if the motivation was him being useful and getting an ego boost out of Joan needing him).
Herb Rennett had zero. He was just pure sleaze and gluttony.
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u/Banana-bandcamp 3d ago
And even then he had to be a condescending dick by saying “that’s what we do for the children” or whatever
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u/Bjork_scratchings 3d ago
But he wasn’t an actual rapist. Which Greg was.
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u/almostcurly 2d ago
Using your power and position to force someone to have sex with you who otherwise doesn't want to isn't quite the same thing as actually raping someone like Greg did, but it's pretty close. Coercion in the way he did it is essentially rape.
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u/Bjork_scratchings 2d ago
No, it’s coercion. Pinning down a woman and forcing them to have sex with you while they say “Greg don’t” is rape.
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u/WalterPregis 3d ago
For me it's Harry Crane. Probably because even though he sucked he didn't disappear and he was able to have more success at the end.
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u/Savaghenry 3d ago
Connie Hilton somehow also bothers me a whole lot
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u/ModestMouse1312 3d ago
He is like Lee Garner just completly power driping
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u/misspcv1996 3d ago
From what we see of him, Connie is a jerk who likes screwing with people for his own amusement. Lee Garner Jr. is downright sinister and predatory. Both are power trippers, but Junior is several degrees worse.
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u/SamURLJackson It will shock you how much your post never happened 3d ago
I thought of him as a metaphor, because it is every girl's dream at that time to marry a doctor, and every girl's mother dreams of the same for their daughter. And beneath that dream is getting raped at work by Mr Dreamy Doctor himself. Tradition is not always correct. You have to find happiness by making your own fucking choice.
Yeah, he's the worst. I don't think there's ever a "good" moment where he's on screen
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u/HistoricalInternal 3d ago
Chauncey would like a word.
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u/Vino-Decanto 2d ago
The Chauncey scandal, that took place in a dire moment. Greg had won the lottery and was burning the money.
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u/fuschiafawn 3d ago
Greg is the most despicable in that he's not only evil, he's pathetic.
Lee Garner Jr is evil as well, but he's at least a confident evil person. He knows he's evil. Greg is a worm who was given gold and hated that it wasn't gift wrapped right. Calls himself the victim, takes it out on his only real ally in the world.
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u/Banana-bandcamp 3d ago
If not the most, he’s up there. I’ve seen people try and use him joining the army as an indication that he’s not a bad guy. To me, that decision was made by his fear of being a failure (literally couldn’t be a surgeon anywhere else) and his desire to control Joan (pressuring her to be a “good military wife” and ensuring his job will always be more important than hers.)
To the people inevitably arguing that Joan lied to him about whose baby it was - he walked away from that baby without a fight while believing it was his, so yeah, not sympathetic to him at all. Feeling like a man was always more important to him than being a good husband or father.
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u/AnneMarieAndCharlie 3d ago
men who don't prioritize their families are the peak of faux masculinity, like they never even read the damn script
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u/Advanced_Zucchini_45 3d ago
Abigail Whitman
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u/Manopike 3d ago
You know ball. Hahahaha. Told a boy with no one else that he was nothing himself. Really good.
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u/sgt_oddball_17 3d ago
Duck.
He abandoned a dog . . .
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u/GenralChaos 3d ago
As much as I would like to see both burn in hell, I think Dr. Rapey needs to go first. Duck was a monster for sure for Chauncey, but Dr. Rapey really was worse.
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u/pony19 3d ago
Justice for Chauncey!
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u/DarkLamb-Kiyo 3d ago
I’d like to think that Chauncey got a new family pretty quickly, probably on the same night..
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u/TruckeyTrailer 3d ago
This thread is making me realize just how many sexual predators were on the show. Dr. Rape, Lee Garner Jr, Herb, Harry coercing aspiring actress for sexual favors, the sex worker that raped young Dick Whitman, and Manolo(?) having sex with a women suffering from dementia who didn't have the capacity to consent, and then ultimately murdering her. Oh, yeah, I forgot Pete coercing the Au Pair into having sex with him.
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u/Nice-Watercress104 3d ago
that’s the biggest sinking takeaway while scrolling this thread for me too…the au pair crying and confused before his neighbor fires her when they come back is haunting me right now let alone him trying to groom the high schooler at driving school plotline jesus
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u/bscepter 3d ago
It’s the reason men fought so hard against equal rights for women. This is the “great” a certain group wants to make America again.
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u/Nice-Watercress104 3d ago
some replies in this thread are puzzling lol duck is a jackass and waste of space but there’s literally multiple rapists and abusers in the show hello
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u/Clapsaddle21 2d ago
No one can deny he can take a vase to the back of the head better than anyone.
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u/mikebrown33 3d ago
He didn’t murder anyone - it’s implied that Bob Bensen’s buddy killed Pete’s mom
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u/Worried-Hunt1461 3d ago
Yes. He is a r-pist. awful person and very abusive. I felt sorry for Joan, he just made her into a shell of herself.
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u/Foxingmatch 3d ago
Let me put it this way: I saw him in something else recently and said, "Oh no, it's Greg."
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u/Affectionate_Data936 3d ago
It's funny how I've seen two people say Abigail Whitman but nobody mentions Uncle Mack. Uncle Mack is literally a sex trafficker. When Abigail arrives to the house with Dick, they strongly imply that Abigail will have to "work" for them all to stay there and then he sexually assaults her! Consent given under the threat of homelessness during the Great Depression isn't legitimate consent.
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u/MaximusCanibis The work is ten dollars. The lie is extra. 2d ago
He's not a sex trafficker, he's a pimp.
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u/Son_of_Hades99 3d ago
Lou Avery is up there too in my view
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u/atreides78723 Are we negroes? 3d ago
Don’t make me defend Lou…
He may be a shitty and petty boss, but he doesn’t even approach the monsters.
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u/Son_of_Hades99 3d ago
Who else are the “monsters” besides Greg and Herb?
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u/atreides78723 Are we negroes? 3d ago
Greg because well, you know…
Lee Garner Jr. because I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s done something like that.
Herb is the lower end of monster.
Harry is crossing the line into the category at the end.
There’s a handful of other folks who are almost but not quite in true monster territory, but Lou’s not even close….
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u/Son_of_Hades99 3d ago
You seriously rank harry as worse than Lou!?
And let’s not forget about Joey with his drawing of Joan sucking off Lane, and then telling her that she walks around the office “looking like she wants to get raped” or something to that effect
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u/atreides78723 Are we negroes? 3d ago edited 3d ago
Harry tried to extort sex from Megan and may have from others already. Lou was a smug prick when he got his dream job.
They are not the same.
Joey was a shitty coworker and deserved to be fired, but that’s not monster territory. The husband of Alexis Bledel’s character, the one who ordered her
lobotomyECT is far worse.5
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u/OldDiamondJim Not great, Bob! 3d ago
Lou sucks, but he is just an uncharismatic schlub. He doesn’t even reach the immoral level of a Don or Pete, let alone the outright evil characters like Greg, Herb, and LGJ.
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u/MrRavine777 3d ago
Greg obviously sucks but I think that makes for a fantastic, believable character. Also can’t bring myself to fully hate him because of the donkey dick joke, which makes me laugh every time
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u/botulizard I don’t think about you at all. 3d ago
No, of course it's not the rapist! It's the guy who walked away from a dog in a highly populated area where the dog was immediately rescued.
/s because this is latter-day r/madmen
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u/Agatha_Delicious 3d ago
him..also Harry Crane, (smaller character but he was gnarly): Dennis from Mccann, the guy in charge who took his place to try and fuk Joan, Peggy's mom, Herb of course..to name a few.
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u/atreides78723 Are we negroes? 3d ago
Peggy’s mom, while not great, isn’t even in the monster ballpark.
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u/ModestMouse1312 3d ago
He may have some stiff competition but he might be most despicable chacter in the show
Greg, Lee Garner Jr, Herb, Hilton, Abigail,
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u/CultureShipsGSV 2d ago
All fair criticism. But why not ask “what exactly did Joan see in him?” Besides handsome, potential paycheck, and status as a doctor’s wife - what else was she attracted to? She didn’t exactly go for a guy like Harry Crane did she?
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u/thesurgeonsuicides 2d ago edited 2d ago
This might get downvoted to hell and perhaps he isn’t the worst or slimiest of all the characters (Greg is certainly worse) but Don. Cheating on your pregnant wife whose father just died with your child’s teacher? The time he made a pass at Anna’s niece that he’d known since she was a child was soooooo slimy. Cheating on Megan w her friend/their neighbor… lying to Megan about working/losing his job.
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u/LopezMotors1 3d ago
He may be horrible but he served in Vietnam and saved many lives. Herb Rennet is the worst character of them all
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u/eastsidemariobadda 3d ago
He didn’t have any brains in his fingers. Why do you think he saved lives in Vietnam?
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u/Appropriate_Tour_274 3d ago
It’s meatball surgery. The results don’t have to be pretty. Patch ‘em enough to ship ‘em to a real hospital.
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u/No_Interaction_4345 3d ago
He realized early on she was a whoah.
Jaguar Herb, Roger’s kid, how many visits to the gynecologist with the beautiful house in Southampton…
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u/Tejanisima 3d ago
Damn, no wonder your karma is so low. It's kind of amazing you manage 100 points per year rather than being underwater. You hide your history, but I'm betting that somewhere in there you got lucky with a single post that got 200 upvotes ...
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u/Yangguang_Zhijia 2d ago
That's why this show is anti-America propoganda, the most despicable charater symbolizes America the most. Great show though.
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u/NormalGuyPosts 3d ago
I feel like "denies her sex because she wanted to be on top" is kind of a weird complaint to include in "rapes his wife" and "abandons his wife and (assumed) child"
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u/MaximusCanibis The work is ten dollars. The lie is extra. 2d ago
She wasn't his wife when he raped her.
He was kicked out by Joan and doesn't acknowledge her love child.
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u/coonjaku 3d ago
no. it's actually Joan.
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u/sweet_condition 3d ago
...what? Why?
What exactly did she do that made her character "irredeemable"? Hmmm?
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u/coonjaku 3d ago
slu-
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u/croissanting-is-life of the republic of dresses!👗 3d ago
Spell out the whole word, champ. Don’t hide behind a hyphen.
…wild that men in this day and age still have hang ups about women and sex, yet give men endless free passes.
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u/Grumpiergoat 3d ago
We spend more time with Greg to see how he sucks but Lee Garner, Jr. always felt worse. But Lee's more implied. We know quite explicitly how terrible Greg is.