Sometimes, it just looks so good to be bad, or at least, that’s how it looks to us on television and in movies. The villains usually have the best lines, the high-end luxury goods, and, in case of musical bad guys, the best tunes. No network produces quite an amazing cavalcade of villains as The CW.
Since the network’s birth from the ashes of the WB network and UPN, the CW has produced some pretty amazing, over-the-top, chew all the scenery villains, and fans just love to hate them. An amazing villain to root against only means good things for whatever show they’re on. People always tune in for a compellingly diabolical mind. Unless, of course, fans just plain hate them.
Not all villains are created equal. Some of them will actually hurt the shows more than help them. An antagonist, whether a person or a force, is necessary in order to tell a great story. Usually, in such cases, the heroes are well set-up, while the bad guys can be more of a roll of the dice as to quality.
With that in mind, here are 10 CW Villains That Hurt Shows (And 10 The Saved Them).
20. HURT: Chic Cooper (Riverdale)
Chic’s going low on this list because Riverdale’s second season is still on-going, and there’s a chance that he can turn things around. Who knows? Maybe he was the Black Hood all this time. Based on how Chic’s been portrayed, however, no one’s really holding their breath. Chic’s actions on the show definitely do peg him as an antagonist: watching Betty sleep, cutting people out of family photos, possibly ending that dealer's life, blackmailing Betty. He’s not a stable guy, but he’s one with a clear endgame in his mind.
The problem is that, no one has really clued the audience in on his motivations.
Does he just want Alice to himself? Does he want to destroy the people who gave him up? Nothing is clear with Chic. If he’s going to stick around, then information really does need to be given here. Otherwise, he just drags the show down and makes everyone uncomfortable.
19. SAVED: Lemon Breeland (Hart of Dixie)
Lemon was the first season antagonist of the beloved CW show, who schemed to ruin Zoe Hart’s life. All Lemon wanted was Zoe gone from Bluebell, Alabama as she felt the other woman was going to ruin her perfect life. What makes a good antagonist work so well is how they oppose the protagonist -- while Zoe was a modern, abrasive career woman in the first season, Lemon desires the kind of life to make the June and Ward Cleaver green with envy.
After the end of her engagement, Lemon really does grow into her own. While she can still have a that “bless your heart” attitude, she let go of an obsessive need to control everything and begins to take things as they comes. In the process, she actually realizes her own power.
18. HURT: Samuel Campbell (Supernatural)
All Supernatural fans agree that John Winchester wasn’t the best father in the world, but that's not to say he couldn't have been any worse. In the sixth season of the long-running CW show, audiences learned that the boys' grandfather, Samuel Campbell, was resurrected.
Not only did he follow a brutal “destroy anything that moves” philosophy, Campbell also turned out to be a hypocrite. He quite willingly works with Crowley and betrays his grandsons in order for Mary's possible resurrection.
While the addition of the Winchesters facing off against the family member is an interesting one, Samuel didn’t have any qualities for the audience to empathize with.
In fact, he served more as a reminder of why Mary wanted out of the life for both herself and her boys. Needless to say when he passed away on a hunt, no one was too broken up about it. In the end, he was just wasted potential.
17. SAVED: Lucien Castle (The Originals)
For fans of The Originals, Lucien Castle was a breath of fresh air following two seasons of infighting amongst the Mikaelson family. With protagonists as complex and as flawed as the Mikaelsons’, it’s hard to create a villain that can hold their own against them. Surprisingly, Castle turned out to be what the show needed -- he was a methodical planner, someone who took his time.
While he did come out swinging from the gate in the beginning of season three, he also knew when to back off and wait. Just when everyone, audience included, thought he was no real threat, he struck again.
Not only was he able to obtain the same immortality that his family possesses, he also had a weapon that could legitimately end them. Nothing raises the stakes, excuse the pun, when passing is a very real possibility on the line. Kudos for Lucien, who definitely knew how to up the ante.
16. HURT: Bart Bass (Gossip Girl)
Over the course of six seasons, Bart would manipulate everyone around him, especially his children. He investigates his new wife, rebuffs any chances to build a real relationship with his children, and haunts his children from beyond the grave. Of course, even his passing turned out to be a lie, as audiences learned in season five: Bart faked his demise. Season six happened, and things just got weird.
After ousting Chuck from the company, Bart turns out to be involved in shady oil trades, and willingly throws away his marriage. He even makes things at home so terrible that Lily flees the city, and kidnaps Blair in order to force Chuck into compliance. That’s just a small list of the horrible things he did during season six. No wonder fans were happy when he passed, for real presumably.
15. SAVED: Lucifer (Supernatural)
Maybe things got a little weird with Lucifer in later seasons of Supernatural, but season five Lucifer was definitely a villain to fear. For those not up to date with the Supernatural lore, creator Eric Kripke only intended the show to run five seasons. With the cumulation of everything happening in season five. Lucifer was the biggest threat that the Winchesters were, hypothetically, going to face. He definitely delivered: sociopathic, convinced in his own righteousness, one step ahead of Team Free Will -- Lucifer was chilling on the screen whether as Mark Pellegrino or Jared Padalecki.
The Devil haunted the Winchesters, dogged their steps every way. It was only because Sam loved Dean as much as he did that the Winchesters were able to put a stop to things. On the entire way, Lucifer took almost everything from them. Now that’s a mark of a great bad guy.
14. HURT: Damien Darhk (Arrow)
Season four of Arrow is generally considered to be the worst season of the long-running CW series. Part of the reason does boil down to villain, Damien Darhk. In all honesty, Darhk is just too powerful a villain to be believable in this show. A protagonist, whoever that is, needs to have a way to conceivably beat the bad guy.
Darhk has all this power and planning acumen that any victory against him rings hollow in the end.
There was then the major fact that magic took things away from the grounded, gritty superhero show that was Arrow’s earlier seasons, but thankfully, was dialed back in season five. Darhk was moved over to the more appropriate Legends of Tomorrow.
13. SAVED: Hiram Lodge (Riverdale)
It’s hard to believe that we’ve only had Hiram Lodge on our screens for the second season. Looking back on it, the creatives did a masterful thing building Hiram up off-screen, in the shadows, during season one. When Mark Consuelos graced screens as the devious patriarch of the Lodge family, fans immediately had an inkling of what he was capable of.
Naturally, this does not excuse the bad things he has done over the second season. From his cattiness toward Fred Andrews to the fact that he’s ended multiple people's lives, Hiram refuses to let anyone get in the way of his goals. More importantly, he’s always looking for a way to turn a situation to his advantage. It’s that kind of cold calculation that makes him a real threat and so fun to watch.
12. HURT: Ian Banks a.k.a. “Psycho Derek” (One Tree Hill)
He was only in seven episodes of season four, but the impression he made on fans was felt deeply. While he did have a tragic backstory, it certainly doesn’t excuse the special sort of hell he put Peyton Sawyer through. He stalks her through her webcam, sends her creepy IMs, pretends to be her half-brother to get closer to her, pretends to be Lucas.
He later decides to prove his love for Peyton by attempt to hurt Brooke, who Peyton was fighting with at the time. Both girls clue in and he’s sent to prison, where Peyton learns she looks like his ex-girlfriend. Peyton then forgives him on behalf of herself and the ex-girlfriend, after which he's never mentioned on the show again. Audiences were left wondering why this whole plot even had to exist to begin with.
11. SAVED: Juliet Sharp (Gossip Girl)
Even if the later seasons of Gossip Girl tended to have hit or miss antagonists, Juliet Sharp was definitely a bullseye. It’s actually amazing how well-praised she is, considering she was only on the show for half of season four. Pretending to be a wealthy Upper East Sider, Juliet enters a relationship with Nate Archibald in order to cozy up with the series main cast. She believes that Serena van der Woodsen is responsible for sending her brother to prison.
During this period, Juliet does her best to destroy Serena’s life -- she forces Serena into a hazy state and leaves her in a hotel in Queens. This leads to Serena being involuntarily committed to rehab by Lily, who doubts her sanity when pictures of her in the act appear on Gossip Girl.
Needless to say, Juliet’s planning acumen and execution was well-lauded by fans and critics alike. While it was a shame that she was only on for a short amount of time, she does prove the old adage that sometimes less really is more.
10. HURT: Dick Roman (Supernatural)
As a human, he was a multi-billionaire businessman, then he was possessed by the nameless leader of the Leviathans, who wants to rule the Earth with humans as meat and the Leviathans at the top of the food chain. He could be an interesting villain, someone driven by their most basic urges with an all-consuming hunger.
In practice, Roman was just kind of boring.
It goes hand-in-hand with those “all powerful” villains that seem not to be one step ahead of the heroes, but on another game entirely. When Dean and Castiel did defeat him, it just ultimately felt hollow rather than earned. To be fair, the show as a whole did have issues with main villains after season five. Though in recent seasons, things seem to have turned for the better.
9. SAVED: Malcolm Merlyn (Arrow)
Part of the reason Arrow's first season was such a success was due to Malcolm Merlyn a.k.a. the Dark Archer. Cold and calculating, Merlyn was Oliver’s mirror -- both were men on a mission and believed that they were doing what’s best for the city. In contrast, Oliver wanted to hold the rich who had failed Starling City accountable for their crimes. Merlyn, meanwhile, wanted to destroy the poorest communities in order to get rid of the rampant crime in them.
Since Oliver is essentially fighting his mirror, the audience wonders if Oliver will go down Merlyn’s path. The fact that he fights so hard against it, refusing to become Merlyn, makes his journey to being a real hero all the more amazing. Without Merlyn, it just wouldn’t have been as strong.
8. HURT: Vandal Savage (Legends of Tomorrow)
Like other villains on this list, Vandal Savage commits the cardinal sin of being the most boring bad guy on an interesting show. Legends of Tomorrow was utterly focused on bringing down Savage for good in its first season, which actually hurt the show more than it helped in those early days.
Arrow and The Flash's first seasons weaved in smaller villains before building up to a larger, more powerful enemy. It works, allowing character growth while also not repeating the same beats in regard to said enemy.
The unrelenting focus on Savage, who again was boring, plus a grim-dark tone to the show really hurt Legends during its first season. A tonal shift in season two, however, changed things for the better. Most fans of the series consider the show to be what it should have been from the start: a fun, genre-shifting tribute to the Silver Age of Comics.
7. SAVED: Dan Scott (One Tree Hill)
The longest running bad guy on the teen drama One Tree Hill, Dan Scott wins the "Worst Parent" award hands down. Considering all the horrible parents on this list, it’s a dubious honor at best.
Over the course of the show, Dan ditches his girlfriend after she refuses one of his requests, pushes his son Nathan to take illicit substances in order to be better at basketball, pays his brother’s fiancée to string his brother along and break his heart, almost strangles Lucas, blackmails, extorts, and attempts to get rid of a person who was on the waiting list for a heart transplant before him.
Those are just the highlights. He finally passed in season nine and fans were certainly glad to see him go.
6. HURT: Reign (Supergirl)
Supergirl creatives and cast praised its third season villain, Reign. They were going to show the evolution of a good person turned villain, which was going to be a villain unlike we’ve seen in the Arrowverse.
During the beginning of the season, it looked like that’s what it was going to be -- audiences like Sam Arias, who would eventually become Reign. She’s plucky, determined, loves her kid, and cares about her friends. Seeing her slowly fall from the warm woman into the cool and calculating Reign would definitely be tragedy.
Where it fails is the execution from the character going from Sam to becoming Reign.
Rather than having Sam turn into Reign on her own, the hologram in the Fortress of Sanctuary triggers the change; Reign springs up ready to go, and Sam forgets everything she was -- it just cheapens the promised storyline.
5. SAVED: Kai (The Vampire Diaries)
Before Chris Wood was Mon-El on Supergirl, he provided a much-needed villainous jolt on The Vampire Diaries. Villains in later seasons of long-running shows fulfill a vital need and The Vampire Diaries certainly had some very strong villains. No one, however, was quite as chilling as the sociopathic, criminal Kai. Trapped in a 1994 prison world with Bonnie and Damon, Kai easily chilled everyone to the bone albeit in a charming way.
Kai always had a quip, always had a plan, and was always waiting to turn a situation to his advantage. When Kai returned for the eighth and final season of the show, everyone was excited to see his return, except the folks over in Mystic Falls. For fans to be that excited for someone’s return proves just how much of a villainous presence he was.
4. HURT: Ivy Dickens (Gossip Girl)
Ivy Dickens, like Juliet Sharp, was a welcome addition to the fourth season of Gossip Girl. Throughout the fourth season, the struggling actress and conwoman Ivy pretends to be Charlie Rhodes. She was hired by Carol Rhodes to access Charlie’s trust fund, and unlike Sharp, however, Dickens overstays her welcome after achieving series regular status in season five.
The problem with Ivy was that her story would retread a lot of similar ground again and again. The repetitive cycle didn’t make for a lot of character growth. While the creatives of the show seemed to know where to stop with Juliet’s story, they just kept dragging Ivy’s out, which was just to the character’s detriment and proceeded to make her an uninteresting villain.
3. SAVED: Eobard Thawne (The Flash)
The Flash has never had a villain that measured up to Eobard Thawne, who was an absolute revelation in the first season of the show. Reverse Flash is the Flash’s arch-nemesis, the baddest of the bad. Thawne, pretending to be Wells, was magnificent: he dispatched Barry’s mother, ended Wells and his wife's lives, manipulated Barry’s life, willingly created metahumans, used those who cared about him to his own ends, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Thawne, however, made audiences care about him -- he mentored Barry and taught him everything he knows.
He had an understandable goal: going home. Sure, in subsequent seasons he’s trying to outrun the Grim Reaper and messes up time. However, in the first season, he was a complex and compelling villain for the team to face. Pity that no one has lived up to his promise since then.
2. HURT: Savitar (The Flash)
In theory, Barry fighting an evil version of himself should have been really interesting. Even if Barry’s decision making has not been the best, it’s wouldn't be a huge stretch of the imagination that, with Iris passed and himself adrift, he could make one bad decision too many. The problem was that Savitar was just kind of silly.
Sure, he dispatched HR, was going to end Iris, manipulated Julian into a whole Dr Jekyll/Mister Hyde kind of plot. Savitar’s reasoning just never added up. Nothing that Savitar did ever made sense, and then his identity was revealed so late in the season, even though every fan guessed he was evil Barry, that the reveal was squandered. The writers didn’t have time to develop him enough to make the audience care, which is why they were glad to see him go.
1. SAVED: Lex Luthor (Smallville)
A lot of these modern superhero shows owe a lot to Smallville. No one has ever made a more interesting and compelling villain arc than Lex Luthor. His story is kind of Shakespearean in a way; his fall from Clark’s best friend to his worst enemy.
Over the course of the series, Lex slowly slipped down the darker path: partly to spite his father, partly from one betrayal too many.
In the end, it only made sense that Lex’s path would lead him to be Clark’s worst enemy, which didn't make it any less tragic to watch. Lex’s descent into his darkest urges was written from day one, but audiences grew to like the decent yet flawed man. Seeing him give into his “destiny” just made him all the more tragic and all the better villain in the end.
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Who do you think are the best of villains the CW has to offer? Let us know in the comments!