Top Five Unreliable Narrators On TV!

TV & Film

Sep 8

At the end of a long day at work or school, many of us like to settle down in the evening with a favorite television program. For many, this can be a bonding experience, either with family members, or an online community dedicated to sharing thoughts and feelings on what everyone is watching.

We invite these characters into our homes, night after night, week after week, and wait impatiently until the next season starts, sometimes devoting years to follow our best-loved shows. But, what happens if, at the end of a show’s run, or even at some point during the course of the program, you realize that the narrator who you have been so devotedly following, may not be presenting the story as it is really happening? Here are some examples of unreliable narrators in television shows and how they have changed their audience’s perspective through their own distorted reality.

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS FOR EACH PROGRAM DISCUSSED

RELATED:

Featured

Which Addams Has Been The Kookiest, Spookiest, And/Or Ookiest?

5. BoJack Horseman, Netflix, 2014-2020

Image Source: Image source: Tvshowpilot.com

At once, the premise lets you know that this show is a bit on the unusual side: it takes place in an alternative animated universe where humans reside alongside humanoid animals. The title character is a washed-up actor trying to come to terms with his life after being a celebrity.

Noted as one of the best shows of the decade, despite its cartoon form, Bojack Horseman was lauded for realistically depicting subjects such as adoption, teenage pregnancy, abortion, depression, addiction, racism, sexism, and self-destructive behavior. Bojack Horseman shows us the world of “Hollywoo” through his eyes, and it is through him that we navigate his alcoholism and drug addiction as he copes with a reality that he didn’t see coming.

4. Legion, FX, 2017-2019

Based on the Marvel Comics X-Men character, Legion follows the saga of David Haller, a young man in his 30s who has been diagnosed as schizophrenic due to hearing voices and seeing visions in his head. While in yet another mental institution, David befriends “Lenny”, who is optimistic that her “luck is about to change”. As it turns out, “Lenny” is actually an ancient parasite/demon known as the “Shadow King” that has been possessing David, causing his schizophrenic tendencies. He is able to cast out the “Shadow King”, AKA Amahl Farouk, but once this demon is out of his body, David finds out he is a mutant and has psychic abilities. Between his possession and his psychic mutant powers, David’s narrative has its twists and turns.

3. True Detective, HBO, 2014 -

Each season of this acclaimed HBO series stands on its own with a new cast of characters and a new mystery to solve. Along with the main plot line, the detectives on the case also provide their own enigmas. In the first season, the detectives, Cohle and Hart are on the hunt for a serial killer, but have their own issues to work out: Cohle has his own vices, including substance abuse, and he has a hard time dealing with psychological trauma, which, for a police detective, would be very difficult to cope with.

His partner, Hart, is a master manipulator and tries to draw attention away from himself, so who knows if he is saying the truth or just trying to protect himself? Jumping ahead to Season 3, the writers use the idea of the passage of time and memory to set up the unreliable narrators in Detectives Hayes and West. Perhaps the true detectives of this series is the audience itself?

2. Moon Knight, Disney +, 2022 -

In this foray into the MCU, we meet Steven Grant, an all-around nice guy - except when he isn’t himself. The audience finds out that, in fact, Steven Grant has dissociative personality disorder, which means that he has multiple personalities. In his case, there are four - which means the perspective of the show is definitely a roller-coaster ride! Aside from the main character of Grant, who is a millionaire, there is Marc Spector, a mercenary, Jake Lockley, a taxi driver, and Moon Knight himself. It appears with the aspects of all the personalities, they come together to let Moon Knight do his job. It definitely keeps the audience jumping from one angle to the next.

1. Mr. Robot, USA, 2015-2019

In this highly acclaimed basic cable show, Mr. Robot kept people talking. It follows the story of Elliot Alderson, a computer hacker who is recruited by the title character to be part of a secret society, fsociety, in order to take down E(vil) Corp, an organization that Elliot is sure is secretly trying to rule the world. As the story goes on, the audience sees and hears more and more overlaps as Elliot narrates the action in a voice-over - he even yells as certain scenes play out -, and realizes that he is talking to someone in his head the whole time. He even introduces himself to his audience by saying, “Hello friend. Hello friend? That’s lame. Maybe I should give you a name. But that’s a slippery slope, you’re only in my head, we have to remember that. S***, this actually happened, I’m talking to an imaginary person.” As it turns out, he HAS been talking to someone in his head the whole time. Mr. Robot is in fact a figment of his mind, a version of Elliot’s deceased father who is trying to protect Elliot from the evils of the world that he wasn’t able to do when he was alive. It explains why Mr. Robot was always vying for Elliot’s attention - he literally needed it to be around, and Mr. Robot tells Elliot that he is his “God”. Mr. Robot’s showrunner, Sam Esmail, makes it no secret that he was very inspired by another classic unreliable narrator movie, Fight Club, in creating Mr. Robot. Many of the plotlines are similar, but as Mr. Robot is a TV show, the twists play out over a long period of time, which certainly kept its audience hooked for the four seasons it was on USA.