On television, women are allowed to be good wives or new girls. They can break hearts or fix them, be criminals or cops. But for the most part the one thing they can’t be on television is a mess. And not a cutesy, unable-to-decide-between-handsome-boyfriend-and-dream-job, panic-eating and klutz-falling cue-the-Fray-on-the-soundtrack sort of mess, either. I’m talking an honest-to-goodness shitshow — a complicated, complex character who manages to be both brutally effective and titanically troubled. Think Andy Sipowicz, Tony Soprano, George Costanza; charismatic, memorable men allowed to be more than one thing at any given time, and most of them terrible. After only two hours of screen time, it might be time to add Carrie Mathison to the list.

Posted at 4:45 PM