All hail the badass women who ruled TV
This was the year the small screen was conquered by some awe-inspiring – and truly despicable – female characters, writes Paul Flynn. And about time too…
villanelle swishing boldly through the Tuilleries wearing Molly Goddard in Killing Eve; Thandie Newton nursing her own withered hand in Line Of Duty; Issa Rae’s rolled eyes at another tawdry date in Insecure; Keeley Hawes’ Home Secretary’s autoerotic invitation to her hot, troubled security man in Bodyguard; Midge’s blowback from her husband’s infidelity in The Marvellous Mrs Maisel. Whatever door had been flung open by Big Little Lies in 2017 was positively charged through this year by a succession of stroppy, complex, amazing and audacious female characters. Everywhere you looked in 2018, women were behaving like superlative badasses on TV.
The show of the year was, of course, Killing Eve. Written by Fleabag’s Phoebe Waller-bridge, it turned every stultifying convention of screenwriting on its head to deliver a succession of startling new archetypes. By making the goodie (Sandra Oh’s Eve Polastri), the baddie (fashion’s first lesbian assassin, Villanelle) and the boss (Fiona Shaw’s skewed chief of spies) a sea of perfectly aggregated oestrogen, it was as if the writer set out hellbent to atone for every beautiful corpse and glamorous assistant role that sullies TV tradition.
And what a supporting cast she assembled in her wake. Fiery, lively dames, directly in tune with their times. Whether it was Zazie Beetz’s Van telling her lame, underperforming on/off boyfriend Earn to sling his hook at the end of Atlanta’s perfect second season, or Alia Shawkat devouring the disingenuousness of social media in the brilliant tale of the missing college friend, Search Party, the plethora of recognisable characters drawn from real life felt like a rush of blood to the head.
And these were just the fictional characters. Once opened, the floodgates weren’t closing any time soon. Emily Maitlis on Newsnight, every bit as forensic in her journalism as Evan Davis before her; Victoria Coren Mitchell repping for the
nerds on Only Connect; Diane ‘ Philomena Cunk’ Morgan piercing Middle England’s stupidity; The Mash Report’s amazing Rachel Parris and Ellie Taylor; Tess, Claudia, Dame Darcey, Shirley Ballas and their supporting GBFS absolutely owning Strictly; Prue Leith’s prowess on Bake Off; even Susanna Reid facing the daily indignity of going head to head with Piers Morgan with pure class.
In 2018, the high, the low and every shade in between rocked TV screens out of their state of misogynous inertia. As the new Doctor Who slogan put it, advertising their new female protagonist, ‘Jodie Whittaker: about time’.