GET IT ALL: TheWrap's Year in Review: From Moguls to Movies to ... WTF!?
A great story unfolds with a sense of inevitability: You know the characters couldn't behave any other way.
But for a story to hold our interest – much less make us laugh, scream at the TV, even cry – the characters need to be unpredictable. Only in retrospect can we recognize how their fears, ambitions and failures sealed their fates.
Also read: How Giancarlo Esposito Forced 'Breaking Bad' to Get Even Better
The five characters on our list – and the writers, actors, directors, and many others who shaped them – held our fascination more than any others on television. And they rewarded us for our attention with storylines that felt true and complete.
They also delivered a lot of awfully cool lines.
A quick spoiler warning before we begin: We're going to talk about what every character on our list did, and what became of them. If you haven't seen these shows, go watch them.
1. GUSTAVO "GUS" FRING (GIANCARLO ESPOSITO), "BREAKING BAD": Nothing can diminish a great villain like revealing his backstory – remember how much lamer Darth Vader and Hannibal Lecter became after their prequels?
Walter White's nemesis on "Breaking Bad" was introduced as an exceedingly humble restaurant owner, who soon proved to be a ruthless meth kingpin willing to personally dispatch an inept underling with a box cutter.
A midseason look back at Gus' history initially seemed like a risky move: We learned that he had mysterious ties to Pinochet's Chile, and a close relationship with a business partner who may also have been his lover. But learning about Gus's past made him more sympathetic, and viewers' slight shift in allegiances paralleled the one by Walt's partner, Jesse, as he grew closer to Gus.
The flashback to one terrible day in Mexico also paid off with Gus exacting a brilliant revenge on his former tormentors – and then, finally, with the most spectacular death in TV history. Ever.
2. MAGS BENNETT (MARGO MARTINDALE), "JUSTIFIED": She was a fierce holler mama who smashed her disobedient son's hand with a hammer and made Tony Soprano and Nucky Thompson look refined.
Whether cutting devious deals with Boyd Crowder or the evil mining company (both at the expense of anyone not named Bennett), or playing substitute mother to teen Loretta (whose father she'd killed with her poisonous "apple pie" moonshine), Mags knew how to rule with an iron fist and a manipulative word. But she still managed to be charming in a down-home way, even in that hammer scene.
She was -- before downing her own fatal dose of apple pie -- a scene-stealing, richly-written character in a show packed with them. Martindale, who deservedly won an Emmy for the role, also turns in top-notch, understated work on CBS's "A Gifted Man" – but we wish she had another role like Mags.
