Olivia ChariTy

Midnight, Texas’s female assassin with anger issues

“Do you mind getting my things in the trunk?” Olivia asks her boyfriend on returning to the town of Midnight, Texas after a business trip. He agrees and opens the trunk. There’s a man tied up inside. “I see you brought your work home.”

Olivia, y’see, is an assassin. An acid-tongued, kick-ass assassin, who loves a good interrogation and has secret cupboards full of disguises and guns. And, of course, she habitually wears leather and fights in her undies if need be. Gratuitous? Probably, but Midnight, Texas has a parade of shirtless men too, so at least it’s an equal opportunities titillator.

While most the inhabitants of Midnight are supernaturals, Olivia’s a human. And there’s no silent “mere” before the human. She’s as adept at fighting vampires as Buffy, and doesn’t need to be a chosen one. A demon with a roundhouse kick, her best move so far involved staking

a bloodsucker with her stiletto. Now, that’s stylish.

We’ve also seen her on the job, ruthlessly dispatching targets and giving this already unusual show a cool Alias vibe. And while she’s suspicious around newcomers (she knocks out the show’s hero with a knuckleduster in episode one just because she sees him talking to a cop), with her friends she’s charmingly open. While packing her guns for one assignment she has an adorable girl-to-girl with hippy witch Fiji, advising her to “ditch the peasant skirts” if she wants to nab a man.

It helps that Olivia is dating the second best character on the show: the angular vampire Lemuel, who can leech emotions as well as blood. They have a wonderfully pervy interdependent relationship where his leeching not only satiates his hunger but helps control her anger issues. Who needs a shrink? Dave Golder