By definition, a psychopath is someone who lacks emotional intelligence, causing them to turn into egocentric beings that have little to no regard for other people. Oftentimes, these people also tend to have a streak of criminal tendencies making them extremely dangerous to society and thereby to themselves.
Due to the longer nature of its medium, TV shows do more justice to complex and unsettling characters, when compared to films. Thereby facilitating the time for the creation of depth and layers in the characterization to make them relatable to the audience. This specifically works in the case of villains and psychopaths, since the audience can truly experience the range of the character. While some psychos are just weird and creepy, some are sick and perverse. Here’s a look at some of the creepiest psychopaths in TV shows, ranked.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
8 Yoon Gwi-nam - All of Us Are Dead
Netflix
The product of a sad case of parenting, or the absence of such, Gwi-nam is a startling example of the destructive and despicable lengths teenagers can go to, to get what they want. If sexual assault, bullying, and murder were high school subjects, Gwi-nam would be a topper. Gwi-nam’s character is so frustratingly pathetic that whenever he enters the frame, he manages to exude a sharp pang of hate from the viewer.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
7 Oh ll-nam - Squid Game
In Squid Game, Oh II-nam is one of those psychopaths that on the surface level seem helpless and docile, but on the inside are cunning and conniving. Using the greed and desperation of others as rocket fuel to conduct his own experiments on society, the old man, devises a game that rewards its players with a large sum of money, but comes at the cost of their lives.
6 Norman Bates - Bates Motel
NBCUniversalA&E
A true definition of a ‘momma’s boy’, Norman Bates is one of the most unsettling and creepy characters in the world of TV shows. When Norman was younger, his mother Norma doted on him and smothered him to the point where he couldn’t form his own sets of rights and wrongs, causing him to have a man’s body, but a child’s ego. This mutual obsession between mother and son became extremely toxic to the point where Norman ended up killing Norma because she gave her new husband Alex some attention, over him.
5 Joe Goldberg - You
Nextflix
Joe Goldberg from You possesses the mind of a perverted killer and the stalking skills of a computer engineer. Goldberg’s character is very relatable in the current context of social media, highlighting the prospect of leaving a digital footprint available for all to see. Joe’s twisted mind compulsively manipulates, overthinks, and obsesses over his crush, making him go to despicable lengths to get close to her, even if that means killing anybody that gets in his way.
4 Henry Drax - The North Water
BBC
Henry Drax is someone you wouldn’t want to be in a restaurant with, let alone on a ship in the middle of the frozen ocean. Drax is a scary combination of two of the most dangerous traits in a psychopath: strength and cunning, coming off as a carnal monster whose brutality knows no bounds. While preparing for the role of Henry Drax, Colin Farrell admitted “I’ve never read a role like it where what felt like sheer, carnal brutality was fleshed out so beautifully. Objectively, there was kind of beauty in how ugly and how broken Drax is. He’s very much an animal of his environment and I couldn’t attest to what his nature is, but I think his environment is one that’s scored him so severely.”
3 Ramsey Bolton - Game of Thrones
Warner Bros. Television Distribution
Ramsey Bolton is the walking portrait of everything wrong with humanity. A sadistic, bestial man who delights in the suffering of others. What makes Ramsey stand out from other psychopaths is his intelligence and knowledge about his fellow man. A byproduct of sexual assault, Ramsey’s convoluted and corrupt worldview permits him to do any crime to anyone so long as it serves a purpose or gives him a certain amount of thrill. One of Ramsey’s ingenious ways to torture and kill people consisted of him feeding them to his starved hounds… which was also how he meets his end.
2 Dexter Morgan - Dexter
CBS Television Distribution
A forensic technician by day, a justice-seeking psychopath by night. In Dexter, Dexter Morgan displays psychopathic tendencies, but they are channeled towards a cause: a hunt for heinous perpetrators who have somehow escaped the clutches of the law. The show accurately characterizes Dexter and his propensity towards crime from an early age when he would murder neighborhood pets, one of the first signs of a psychopath.
1 Hannibal Lecter - Hannibal
NBC
When you go over to Hannibal Lecter’s house for dinner and ask him what’s on the menu, the answer is often, you. Hannibal Lecter works as a forensic psychiatrist, but secretly lives the double life of a cannibalistic serial killer. The stoic, creepy, doctor’s knowledge of biology, along with the human psyche places him right on the top of the list of the scary psychopaths in the world of TV.
