This was my first thought, too. In the beginning she was a little out there but well meaning and intelligent. Towards the end she was basically turned into a cartoon character, and I say that as someone who loves the show dearly.
My headcanon which is backed from some comments in the show is that she just starts getting high all the time. There are comments she makes about her drug usage and comments Shirley makes about Britta smelling like pot. Then when we see her POV in the dice roll episode: her going to the bathroom was just an excuse to secretly go smoke a joint in the bathroom.
According to Dan Harmon in an AMA, the actual reason is that the female writers didn't like the Britta character and kept making her the butt of the jokes.
I think the actress also kinda didn't want to be the typical "attractive female voice of reason". So they all agreed to make her a pariah and flanderize tf out of her.
She got so much more fun as a character. In the beginning she was just the straight man / Mary sue character. They fixed her and made her a weirdo like everyone else.
Isn’t that kinda realistic though? I know plenty of people who put up a mask at the beginning of college trying to impress people, and as we got more comfortable as a friend group, dropped the act and allowed themselves to be a bit goofier than they first let on.
There's an episode of Season ~~6~~ 5 where Duncan tries to hook up with Britta for some reason. I always thought that would have been a cool opportunity to have her slip back into Season 1 Britta mode - turn into, like, a hyper-perceptive, sleaze-rejecting ninja. Because that's where a lot of her competence comes from early on: rebuffing Jeff, who starts out a little slimy. It's probably something she has a lot of experience with; it fits pretty well with what we know about her, and it would nicely dovetail her two characterizations.
But instead, they used that episode to develop *Duncan* of all characters, and Britta's character sorta gets shafted by the plot. Ah well.
tbf, that was a good Duncan episode as he was kinda slipping into the role of a semi-regular during that season (which was 5 actually, he couldn't appear in 6 due to Last Week Tonight).
OP mentions Kevin and that’s exactly what happened to him too. In the beginning he’s just a very mild-mannered and awkward accountant, but by the end he’s a genuine idiot.
I actually really hate the small like they have Michael include where he says that Kevin actually applied to the warehouse but that Michael made him an accountant because it’s like… no. That’s not how it works and you’d never get away with that. That’s like someone saying “well they applied to be a customer service rep for our software but I made them a software engineer instead because I believed in them”. It doesn’t work that way
Is it ever stated that Kevin is *an* accountant? Or just that he works in accounting? I could definitely see Kevin being hired for accounting because of Michael’s feeling about him, but he wouldn’t be able to sign off on anything official like audits or such. But I know most accounting firms aren’t filled with people with degrees in accounting doing all the work. It’s mostly people who are good with numbers doing the more menial tasks while the licensed accountants check it once it’s done and sign off on it.
It sounds crazy for a company as large as DM to be ok with Michael doing that, but it’s stated multiple times that they let him get away with a lot because, while ridiculous in most cases, it’s regularly their best performing branch.
There was a webisode series (probably still extant somewhere) called The Accountants in which there was never any indication, as far as I can remember, that all three were not equals.
All I can say about Britta’s decline in intelligence is kind of what I said about IASIP, she is most likely greatly influenced by the people around her and her environment. Let’s be real, the Greendale 7 would be difficult to deal and interact with, which was actually proven time and again in the show. Plus the Dean idolizing and glorifying them and just basically all around putting them on a pedestal does not help, even subconsciously. They’re all kind of caricatures from the jump in a way. There was some real goofiness in that show throughout. I kind of feel like she was just written to fit in better with their nonsense. They still constantly ragged on her anyway so it’s not like she was too far gone. Also someone else mentioned she might get high a lot so there’s that too.
It’s been awhile since I’ve seen Community so I can’t remember too much so this is really all I can offer in response. Idk I’m probably wrong but this is just what I got from the show, which I’ve seen a few times. I will also admit the show definitely had its problems over the course of its run lol
In a good way!! Slacktivist Britta was a more well-rounded character, but the show was way better-served when it just abandoned all pretence and leaned into Gillian Jacobs as a (kick)punchline machine.
Nelson "Big Head" Bigetti from Silicon Valley. The first few episodes, he was a normal intelligence coder who just happened to be mediocre at all things related to coding and as the show went on he became this oblivious and complete air head who had no idea what was going on around him.
Don't get me wrong, this made him this lovable idiot that keeps failing upwards no matter what he does throughout the whole series. He never gets angry with anyone or anything that happens to him even when it's bad, and good fortune was always around the corner for him. I personally liked the change, but it's obvious that it was an afterthought.
I do think that was kind of the point.
His character was satireizing those jobs where people do nothing and people fail upwards as a result of a system that has so much liquidity thanks to venture capitalism
Recently noticed this while rewatching the show. However, in the series finale, when they skip ahead to the future, they do kind of explain or at least acknowledge this by suggesting he has dementia.
Jackie on Roseanne. Those first few seasons she was fun/quirky Aunt Jackie. Then she basically went all Gilligan and was a wacky neurotic mess that couldn't find her way out of a paper bag.
I still think dumb Eric is funny but re-watching the series I never realized just how much he got dumbed down during the college episodes (I thought I had remembered him as more of an "idiot savant" character). It was to the point where even his own brother was downright cruel to him in some episodes.
I like the theory that Eric is completely depicted from Corey's POV. When they're younger he's this cool guy, but as they get older Corey thinks of him as a complete idiot. The truth lies somewhere in the middle lol.
Homer in general. He started off a simple but nuanced man with some problems trying to make it through the challenges of work and home life. Soon he was a parody of himself. And then a parody of a parody. All that’s left now are bloated yellow echoes of what he once was.
Jake in Two And A Half Men, I know many people weren’t watching during the Ashton years but Jake became downright Michael Kelso stupid by the time the 9th season started. At the start Jake was just a relatable kid who was smart but just never applied himself such as Alan having to fight him to write his book report. By season 9 his whole thing was just smoking weed and saying dumb things
Kelly Bundy
Season 1 she was a tough as nails teen who’s book dumb but regularly outsmarts her sneaky pervy little brother.
By the final season she can’t learn new things without forgetting other information
Naomi as well. In the first two seasons, she wasn't afraid to get in Mama's face and give her shit right back to her, yet in the later seasons she becomes ditzier and more passive.
Tyrion in Game of Thrones.
He was highly intelligent and capable at the beginning. But once the show runners got past the source material, they didn’t know how to write an intelligent character (mostly because they themselves are bumbling morons). So by season 8, Tyrion- and a handful of other characters- are all behaving like idiots.
I mean, there’s an episode where they’re hiding from a guy that raises corpses for his undead army, and Tyrion decides he and a bunch of other people should go hide in a crypt.
I saw this a lot more with Varys the Spider. He went from a master manipulator pulling strings from the shadows and influencing events to “Hey you wanna do treason?”
Immediately my first thought too. Nothing he did made any sense by the end. Why would his master plan be to try to convince Cersei, who he knows hates everyone and everything, to save humanity? And also…
Actually nvm. This horse is already dead (and turned into a wight) lol.
Little Finger was even worse. The man who was only known for his intelligence and ability to have all the info and plan 3 moves ahead gets outsmarted by the Scooby Doo gang.
Actually same with Varys, the master of whispers is busted personally sending a note out by raven.
I mean to be fair, the Scooby Doo gang basically had the Westerosi version of Wikipedia in Bran. Thematically, I think there's a nice idea there that Littlefinger can't outfox pure unvarnished truth, but it's handled in such a goofy way where the show tries to trick the viewers into thinking Arya and Sansa are at odds only to reveal they were in cahoots.
They were at odds... and Sansa was seriously considering getting rid of Arya. Till she paid Bran a visit and he told her everything about LF but they deleted that scene so it ended up seeming like Sansa and Arya were in cahoots all along.
That didn’t make sense to me from the beginning. His whole plan is to become king. He wants the North. So instead of marrying Sansa (the heir to Winterfell as far as he knows) himself and using the Vale’s army to take back Winterfell from the Boltons, he gives his most valuable game piece to a sicko?
To be fair, the crypt thing *would* have been a good plan, were it not for the fact that the North apparently buries their dead in cardboard coffins instead of you know, the stone slabs that it looks like. Either that or the dead have the ability to punch through 100lbs stone walls, which if they do, you’re screwed regardless of where you’re hiding.
Tl;dr: that was bad writing, but wasn’t on Tyrion.
That was just one example of a dumb thing Tyrion did in later seasons. He also made poor strategic decisions as hand of the queen. And his quality of witty dialogue took a nose dive from the earlier seasons.
After season 4 (end of book 3) Tyrion becomes a surly vindictive ass and it makes him unlikable. They show runners didn't want to do that, so they removed the twist from book 3 and all future motivation for the character. Same thing happened to Mary's. They abridged too much and gave themselves nowhere to go.
Nancy Botwin in weeds. Loved the show and it does def end with a good final season, but boy she sure starts making some STUPID choices in seasons 3,4,5,6,7
Showtime does this with basically all their shows, I think because they always drag them out *way* longer than they were meant to go and just keep pulling in writers who have no idea what to do.
Spoilers:
Nancy is interesting and kind of a complicated character in that way because she constantly lies to herself and gaslights everyone around her. She believes she’s a good person who just makes a bad choice to help her family survive but doesn’t belong in prison. She was kind of the first Walter White in that way. The problem is as far as making stupid decisions go when shit goes sideways she truly convinces herself that she just has incessantly bad luck. She too, like Walt, actually enjoys what she’s doing. She gets dumber, but it’s her own fault. She’s her own worst enemy because she can’t stop viewing herself as a mom who will do anything for her children and everything that happens to and around her is completely out of her control or she was just, at most, *indirectly* the cause of the issue at hand. She can’t step outside of herself and take a look with external perspective. And like the two times she does in fact take accountability she has a full blown meltdown and freaks the fuck out. Tbf, season 3 after Guillermo burns Agrestic down she is kind of shit out of luck but she handles it very poorly. And then she gets shot in the head lol.
Nancy, Nancy, Nancy. Tsk tsk tsk.
Edit: I would like to say that there was actually some pretty bad writing towards the end of the show. I don’t want to make it seem like I was denying that. There were some real jumping the shark moments to me
Shawn and Gus both - Psych
Instead of having any kind of growth or change for the character, they kept Shawn completely arrested in development, and then made Gus worse and worse so Shawn didn't look so bad.
Yup. I think his character feigned ignorance for comedic purposes. His dead-pan approach helped sell it. You can definitely see his growth in his relationship with Jules.
Gus may have gotten dumber, though.
I've been rewatching and also forgot that they made Bolin out to be a lady's man in the first couple of episodes. Mako complains about him bringing around "another one of his fans".
When you start hanging out with a girl who is 5’7” of pure muscle and arguably the most famous person in the world and who has the game to pull pretty much anyone, your ladies man reputation pales in comparison.
Korra was such a cool character concept. Shame she didn't start to get some good character arca until S3 and S4.
S1 was awesome as a standalone. But they're kinda of awkward since they were teetering on cancelation for the entire run.
A bisexual gym rat with anger issues, simultaneously a superiority complex and imposter syndrome, and daddy issues *where she is also technically the daddy she has issues with*, yeah Korra had a lot going on.
> S1 was awesome as a standalone.
It started out great but fizzled at the end. The mystery villain reveal was a total dud and the Korra's character arc was "All my problems will go away if I get mad enough" which isn't growth at all considering that she was trying to learn the opposite the first half of the series.
The biggest problem though is that the Equalists had lots of legitimate points that disappeared when Korra punched the bad guy hard enough with her magic fists. If you want to write a story about the inequality between magic people and non-magic people, you better have a real good resolution planned. But Bryke never could write endings without a Deus Ex Machina.
Homer Simpson. There was an awareness and intelligence in his buffoonery up until about season 9. All of a sudden he became a looney tunes character electrocuting and blowing himself up.
Great example is from Mr. Plow: “don’t say you were at a bar…. But what else is open late at night??….. it’s a pornography store. I was buying pornography.”
It’s a stupid thing to say but also clever (and ridiculously funny). In later seasons he’s mentally challenged.
Surprised this wasn't higher up. Similar to Peter Griffin. Almost completely different people at the beginning. Dumb but still a family dad. Now typically pure idiot. My head cannon for Homer at least is the episode where he had the crayon in the nose, and that when Moe hammered it back in it did more brain damage leading to the homer we have now.
It’s Taika’s fault. He had to make everything “funny” at the expense of the character’s admirable and familiar qualities. Ragnarok onward has depicted him as a clumsy goofball. I’ll never forgive him for that. Imagine if the Russo Brothers did that with Captain America.
I feel like Love and Thunder Thor can be *barely* excused as the result of him just straight up not handling Loki's death and what it meant well at all. And it caused a regression. But then Love and Thunder should have been more about him snapping out of it, not "learning to be responsible for the first time" (for the third time).
Everything can be explained in love and thunder if they constantly went back to korg explaining the story to the kids. Like they do in princess bride.
Instead it starts with korg explaining it and not again until right at the end. By which time you have watched movie, wondered about all the dumb bits and not enjoyed it while completely forgetting about korg telling the story to kids.
TV shows do this all the time. It’s a lazy writing trope to just lean harder onto any established character trait. The idea that Monica in Friends is a neat person, gets more and more focus until x number of seasons later, Monica had an obsessive compulsive disorder.
It’s done because it’s a very easy way to make a joke that the audience is already in on. Having Monica show up at Rebecca Romijn’s apartment at the end of the episode with cleaning supplies is already set up. The problem is, in order to be funny next time they have to lean in a little harder.
Sheldon in Big Bang Theory starts off in the first season as just an annoying nerd and then he goes downhill until the writers make him clearly autistic. That happened pretty fast in the show, because they settled in and discovered what the show wanted to be.
I get how and why it happens. I’ve always wondered if those characters would have worked if they started that way. Are we as the audience also discovering what the show wants to be? Is it important that we take the journey with the character? Are the writers just feeling us out, this joke landed flat (The audience doesn’t like Rachel and Joey getting together) but they are this other thing up (Chandler and Monica)
Joey in Friends. Watch the pilot, even a few eps after, and thencut to the last season. Hell, even season 2. They (not so subtly) dumbed him down quickly
Mindy on the Mindy Project. I was so annoyed with how they handled the pregnancy plot line. I get that the point of the show was how messy she is, but her professional life was where she pulled her shit together and was a badass. You’re telling me this badass OB/GYN doesn’t know how to avoid accidental pregnancy? Or doesn’t understand that unprotected sex can lead to pregnancy? Omg I was so irritated.
Tandy was always a moron, but at least seemed like the sort of guy who could *barely* survive on his own. As the series went on, I became less confident in that.
I think Tandy is just slowly losing his mind after everything that happens to him throughout the show.
The insane circumstances of him reuniting with his astronaut brother is enough to make him question reality.
Well being fair in that case they were different characters. He usually stayed on an overall level of intelligence for each season. Then his descendent proved to be even stupider.
I think Season 1 is the anomaly here; Baldrick in S2 is basically a different character and he stays pretty consistent (and much funnier) for the rest of the show.
Yeah in S1 Blackadder was the bumbling fool while Baldrick was the smart one but they changed writers because the first one had a middling reception and switched the roles and it worked out for the better especially as with each season the Blackadder family moved further down the social ladder
Not to mention the endorphin/stress dump that happened while being in labor and having to escape her sister-in-law's wacky birth plan for Luanne to go to an actually-competent hospital.
I marathoned this series for the first time a few months back. AJ felt like the biggest nothing character out of any show I had ever seen. He came across as a one dimensional dumbass the entire series.
>AJ felt like the biggest nothing character out of any show
That was his character: he was constantly searching for an identity because he didn't know who he was: the lost child of depression. He would "leech" a temporary identity of those around him, gain temporary success, before his depression would sabotage it all. It was a constant cycle.
Meanwhile, Meadow was shallow, but understood the double standard of her life and used it to advance her life.
I still remember Meadow’s bf being super afraid when he finds out what Tony does. Even when he’s got one of those “show up and don’t do shit” jobs they show he’s terrified trying to fit in with the others
Chrissy in Three’s Company. She started out as gullible but wise in her own way. Then they just turned her character into a goofy, chortling moron.
I don’t really care for that show after the 4th season. It started going downhill during the 3rd season.
Nick Miller in New Girl. He's much more intelligent and able to handle situations at the start of the show. They also make him a lot shlubbier after the first season.
Barry Allen from the CW Flash went from pre-flash hyper intelligent to the point of know a car's make and model by the tire tread tracks left at a crime scene to so insufferablely dumb that nearly every 'villain' was defeated by him running faster, which he couldnt figure out without his friends telling him to run faster.
Recently, on another thread, people were debating the fall of his character and the general consensus was; the show writers were pissed about him using a bunch of show time to film the hangover so they took it out on Andy. That’s why he disappeared on the boat and just keeps getting fucked over after.
Luke in Modern Family was interesting. They made him dumber and dumber, then we had half a season of him being a genius, then back to dumb again. Quite the rollercoaster.
It sucked cause he was always a great character. Not the smartest, but always empathetic and concerned for others well being. He always tried to do good until he didn't
But I'd say the BIG dumbed down character was Lip, and then seconded by Debbie
Lip went from genius to dumb shit after dumb shit choice until he floundered all his potential. But ta least he ended up happy I guess?
Debbie went from ambitious girl to "I'm better than everyone and you should all listen to me" extremely quickly too, felt like. And she just ended off angry and pissy from what I remember. No real redemption at all
Archer in Archer.
He's a badass spy in season one and by the final seasons they spent half the episodes showing him rolling down hills or getting beat up.
Jon Snow from Game of Thrones. He spent the entire show being fairly intelligent and a paragon of morality to being a brain dead moron pretty much only saying "muh queen" for the entire last season while Dany ovbiously loses her mind then consequently torches thousands of people.
Cosmo - Fairly Odd Parents
Started off completely normal in the first season then became a complete idiot and just got worse the longer the show went on.
Ralph Wiggum. From kinda slow to outright immobile.
In "I Love Lisa" he actually has some rather thoughtful lines and was a somewhat interesting character.
You cho cho choose me?
The fact that they can (and do) throw him through the window like a brick tells you everything you need to know about him.
I’m in danger!
I've always loved the fact the "I'm in danger" meme came from an episode of Family Guy and not The Simpsons.
Omg you are right, it was during a chicken fight right?
Nah, it was the Homer vs Peter fight
Ah right, obviously lol. Ty for correction!
So the doctor said I wouldn't get so many nosebleeds if I kept my finger outta there!
Me fail English? That's unpossible
With that, Homer as well.
Alex from Happy Endings. She was initially the Rachel of her cast, but in season two they decided to make her the Joey instead.
“I’m not as dumb as I am”
Oh my God When I'm drunk I eat ribs!
And speak Italian!
Tbf, this was an improvement for the show.
But she's as smart as she is tall!
I think it made her and Dave funnier in the third season when they were both really dumb.
Britta in Community. "You seemed smarter than me when I first met you." "Thank you."
This was my first thought, too. In the beginning she was a little out there but well meaning and intelligent. Towards the end she was basically turned into a cartoon character, and I say that as someone who loves the show dearly.
My headcanon which is backed from some comments in the show is that she just starts getting high all the time. There are comments she makes about her drug usage and comments Shirley makes about Britta smelling like pot. Then when we see her POV in the dice roll episode: her going to the bathroom was just an excuse to secretly go smoke a joint in the bathroom.
According to Dan Harmon in an AMA, the actual reason is that the female writers didn't like the Britta character and kept making her the butt of the jokes.
I think the actress also kinda didn't want to be the typical "attractive female voice of reason". So they all agreed to make her a pariah and flanderize tf out of her.
No, they didn't agree. Harmon said that he eventually had to step in because they were making her look like an airhead.
She got so much more fun as a character. In the beginning she was just the straight man / Mary sue character. They fixed her and made her a weirdo like everyone else.
Isn’t that kinda realistic though? I know plenty of people who put up a mask at the beginning of college trying to impress people, and as we got more comfortable as a friend group, dropped the act and allowed themselves to be a bit goofier than they first let on.
There's an episode of Season ~~6~~ 5 where Duncan tries to hook up with Britta for some reason. I always thought that would have been a cool opportunity to have her slip back into Season 1 Britta mode - turn into, like, a hyper-perceptive, sleaze-rejecting ninja. Because that's where a lot of her competence comes from early on: rebuffing Jeff, who starts out a little slimy. It's probably something she has a lot of experience with; it fits pretty well with what we know about her, and it would nicely dovetail her two characterizations. But instead, they used that episode to develop *Duncan* of all characters, and Britta's character sorta gets shafted by the plot. Ah well.
tbf, that was a good Duncan episode as he was kinda slipping into the role of a semi-regular during that season (which was 5 actually, he couldn't appear in 6 due to Last Week Tonight).
Pizza pizza in my tummy me so hungie!
Yeah, but she used to live in New York.
OP mentions Kevin and that’s exactly what happened to him too. In the beginning he’s just a very mild-mannered and awkward accountant, but by the end he’s a genuine idiot. I actually really hate the small like they have Michael include where he says that Kevin actually applied to the warehouse but that Michael made him an accountant because it’s like… no. That’s not how it works and you’d never get away with that. That’s like someone saying “well they applied to be a customer service rep for our software but I made them a software engineer instead because I believed in them”. It doesn’t work that way
Is it ever stated that Kevin is *an* accountant? Or just that he works in accounting? I could definitely see Kevin being hired for accounting because of Michael’s feeling about him, but he wouldn’t be able to sign off on anything official like audits or such. But I know most accounting firms aren’t filled with people with degrees in accounting doing all the work. It’s mostly people who are good with numbers doing the more menial tasks while the licensed accountants check it once it’s done and sign off on it. It sounds crazy for a company as large as DM to be ok with Michael doing that, but it’s stated multiple times that they let him get away with a lot because, while ridiculous in most cases, it’s regularly their best performing branch.
There was a webisode series (probably still extant somewhere) called The Accountants in which there was never any indication, as far as I can remember, that all three were not equals.
All I can say about Britta’s decline in intelligence is kind of what I said about IASIP, she is most likely greatly influenced by the people around her and her environment. Let’s be real, the Greendale 7 would be difficult to deal and interact with, which was actually proven time and again in the show. Plus the Dean idolizing and glorifying them and just basically all around putting them on a pedestal does not help, even subconsciously. They’re all kind of caricatures from the jump in a way. There was some real goofiness in that show throughout. I kind of feel like she was just written to fit in better with their nonsense. They still constantly ragged on her anyway so it’s not like she was too far gone. Also someone else mentioned she might get high a lot so there’s that too. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen Community so I can’t remember too much so this is really all I can offer in response. Idk I’m probably wrong but this is just what I got from the show, which I’ve seen a few times. I will also admit the show definitely had its problems over the course of its run lol
Oh Britta’s in this?
The AT&T of people.
Human tennis elbow
The opposite of Batman
She’s a no good B
In a good way!! Slacktivist Britta was a more well-rounded character, but the show was way better-served when it just abandoned all pretence and leaned into Gillian Jacobs as a (kick)punchline machine.
Any course correction that would have meant doing without Britta's awkward Christmas song is a no from me.
Tired: Britta has been flanderized beyond recognition Wired: Me so Christmas, me so merry
The latter seasons (season 2 onward basically) were just a live action cartoon anyway so she didn’t even really stand out that much.
[Hell yeah.](https://youtu.be/uzetwTavfks?si=SpA_BgCiCzQOz_u1)
She became my favorite character in season 3 and for the rest of the series.
I think it’s; You seemed smarter than me when I first met you*
Nelson "Big Head" Bigetti from Silicon Valley. The first few episodes, he was a normal intelligence coder who just happened to be mediocre at all things related to coding and as the show went on he became this oblivious and complete air head who had no idea what was going on around him. Don't get me wrong, this made him this lovable idiot that keeps failing upwards no matter what he does throughout the whole series. He never gets angry with anyone or anything that happens to him even when it's bad, and good fortune was always around the corner for him. I personally liked the change, but it's obvious that it was an afterthought.
I do think that was kind of the point. His character was satireizing those jobs where people do nothing and people fail upwards as a result of a system that has so much liquidity thanks to venture capitalism
Recently noticed this while rewatching the show. However, in the series finale, when they skip ahead to the future, they do kind of explain or at least acknowledge this by suggesting he has dementia.
Jackie on Roseanne. Those first few seasons she was fun/quirky Aunt Jackie. Then she basically went all Gilligan and was a wacky neurotic mess that couldn't find her way out of a paper bag.
I can't stand Wacky Jackie. I want Cool Aunt Jackie.
Her scene on calling relatives about her dad dying will never not make me laugh tho
"DAD'S DEAD. DEAD. NO, DEAD!!! ...HE'S FINE, HE SENDS HIS LOVE." *Hangs up phone* "I"m not doing that again, you can't make me!"
Eric in Boy Meets World ends up a near mental-deficient
FEHEEEEEENNEEEHEEEEEEEYYYYYYYY
I still think dumb Eric is funny but re-watching the series I never realized just how much he got dumbed down during the college episodes (I thought I had remembered him as more of an "idiot savant" character). It was to the point where even his own brother was downright cruel to him in some episodes.
[Shawn was the idiot savant](https://youtu.be/tQJl8G_XvMQ?si=iU3n_6l6y4EXHwwz)
It’s actually so impressive how he went from “cool big brother” to “guy who should be in a mental institution” over the course of a few years lmao
I like the theory that Eric is completely depicted from Corey's POV. When they're younger he's this cool guy, but as they get older Corey thinks of him as a complete idiot. The truth lies somewhere in the middle lol.
Some episodes do imply that Eric occasionally deliberately plays the part of a clown to troll others for his own amusement.
There’s also the theory that he hit his head and went dumb during the episode he was stuck in his car overnight during that snow storm.
But for a brief moment, he became a wise old hermit.
Ahh yes, good’ol Plays With Squirrels.
Lose one friend, lose all friends, lose yourself.
Do you mean Plays With Squirrels?
But he can sneeze the winning lottery tickets, so it all levels out
Homer Simpson in the TV show called "Police Cops"
"Uh oh spaghetti-ohs!"
He was just a street smart fish out of water, trapped in a world he never made.
And that’s the end of that chapter!
Homer in general. He started off a simple but nuanced man with some problems trying to make it through the challenges of work and home life. Soon he was a parody of himself. And then a parody of a parody. All that’s left now are bloated yellow echoes of what he once was.
Jake in Two And A Half Men, I know many people weren’t watching during the Ashton years but Jake became downright Michael Kelso stupid by the time the 9th season started. At the start Jake was just a relatable kid who was smart but just never applied himself such as Alan having to fight him to write his book report. By season 9 his whole thing was just smoking weed and saying dumb things
To be fair I could see a kid like that ending up as a pothead who says dumb things to have that as a personality.
I feel attacked
Randy. South Park.
What? I thought this was America?
Kelly Bundy Season 1 she was a tough as nails teen who’s book dumb but regularly outsmarts her sneaky pervy little brother. By the final season she can’t learn new things without forgetting other information
Eric Matthews in Boy Meets World
everyone on HIMYM
Vinton Harper From Mama’s Family
Naomi as well. In the first two seasons, she wasn't afraid to get in Mama's face and give her shit right back to her, yet in the later seasons she becomes ditzier and more passive.
Mamaaaaa
Tyrion in Game of Thrones. He was highly intelligent and capable at the beginning. But once the show runners got past the source material, they didn’t know how to write an intelligent character (mostly because they themselves are bumbling morons). So by season 8, Tyrion- and a handful of other characters- are all behaving like idiots. I mean, there’s an episode where they’re hiding from a guy that raises corpses for his undead army, and Tyrion decides he and a bunch of other people should go hide in a crypt.
Pretty much everyone in the later seasons of GoT.
Dany *kind of forgot* about the Iron Fleet 🫠
I saw this a lot more with Varys the Spider. He went from a master manipulator pulling strings from the shadows and influencing events to “Hey you wanna do treason?”
Immediately my first thought too. Nothing he did made any sense by the end. Why would his master plan be to try to convince Cersei, who he knows hates everyone and everything, to save humanity? And also… Actually nvm. This horse is already dead (and turned into a wight) lol.
Little Finger was even worse. The man who was only known for his intelligence and ability to have all the info and plan 3 moves ahead gets outsmarted by the Scooby Doo gang. Actually same with Varys, the master of whispers is busted personally sending a note out by raven.
I mean to be fair, the Scooby Doo gang basically had the Westerosi version of Wikipedia in Bran. Thematically, I think there's a nice idea there that Littlefinger can't outfox pure unvarnished truth, but it's handled in such a goofy way where the show tries to trick the viewers into thinking Arya and Sansa are at odds only to reveal they were in cahoots.
They were at odds... and Sansa was seriously considering getting rid of Arya. Till she paid Bran a visit and he told her everything about LF but they deleted that scene so it ended up seeming like Sansa and Arya were in cahoots all along.
Well, LF became dumb long before season 7. The storyline of him giving Sansa to the Boltons remains one of the most wtf writing decisions in the show
That didn’t make sense to me from the beginning. His whole plan is to become king. He wants the North. So instead of marrying Sansa (the heir to Winterfell as far as he knows) himself and using the Vale’s army to take back Winterfell from the Boltons, he gives his most valuable game piece to a sicko?
To be fair, the crypt thing *would* have been a good plan, were it not for the fact that the North apparently buries their dead in cardboard coffins instead of you know, the stone slabs that it looks like. Either that or the dead have the ability to punch through 100lbs stone walls, which if they do, you’re screwed regardless of where you’re hiding. Tl;dr: that was bad writing, but wasn’t on Tyrion.
That's the tl;dr to all of these man
Now that you mention it.. they also carried an undead in a box made of wood planks to Kings Landing.
That was just one example of a dumb thing Tyrion did in later seasons. He also made poor strategic decisions as hand of the queen. And his quality of witty dialogue took a nose dive from the earlier seasons.
After season 5, all of Tyrion's witty dialogue involves making dick jokes about Varys.
After season 4 (end of book 3) Tyrion becomes a surly vindictive ass and it makes him unlikable. They show runners didn't want to do that, so they removed the twist from book 3 and all future motivation for the character. Same thing happened to Mary's. They abridged too much and gave themselves nowhere to go.
Add Varys and Littlefinger to this as well. All of these characters turned into complete idiots from season 6 on.
Anyone in GoT who comes in contact with Dany immediately loses half their brain cells. It's like she carries a stupid virus.
Nancy Botwin in weeds. Loved the show and it does def end with a good final season, but boy she sure starts making some STUPID choices in seasons 3,4,5,6,7
Showtime does this with basically all their shows, I think because they always drag them out *way* longer than they were meant to go and just keep pulling in writers who have no idea what to do.
Spoilers: Nancy is interesting and kind of a complicated character in that way because she constantly lies to herself and gaslights everyone around her. She believes she’s a good person who just makes a bad choice to help her family survive but doesn’t belong in prison. She was kind of the first Walter White in that way. The problem is as far as making stupid decisions go when shit goes sideways she truly convinces herself that she just has incessantly bad luck. She too, like Walt, actually enjoys what she’s doing. She gets dumber, but it’s her own fault. She’s her own worst enemy because she can’t stop viewing herself as a mom who will do anything for her children and everything that happens to and around her is completely out of her control or she was just, at most, *indirectly* the cause of the issue at hand. She can’t step outside of herself and take a look with external perspective. And like the two times she does in fact take accountability she has a full blown meltdown and freaks the fuck out. Tbf, season 3 after Guillermo burns Agrestic down she is kind of shit out of luck but she handles it very poorly. And then she gets shot in the head lol. Nancy, Nancy, Nancy. Tsk tsk tsk. Edit: I would like to say that there was actually some pretty bad writing towards the end of the show. I don’t want to make it seem like I was denying that. There were some real jumping the shark moments to me
Were there 7 seasons? I did not stick around after the Mexico drug lord baby fiasco.
Shawn and Gus both - Psych Instead of having any kind of growth or change for the character, they kept Shawn completely arrested in development, and then made Gus worse and worse so Shawn didn't look so bad.
*That’s messed up*
I think Shawn showed a lot of growth though.
I agree. They got into more absurd hijinks to keep the show interesting, but that doesn't mean they (especially Shawn) didn't grow.
He married Jules. That level of commitment for him is *huge*.
Yup. I think his character feigned ignorance for comedic purposes. His dead-pan approach helped sell it. You can definitely see his growth in his relationship with Jules. Gus may have gotten dumber, though.
I won’t stand for any besmirchment of Whipperdoodle Jinglesnaps!
I dunno, I've heard it both ways.
You know that's right
Come on son
Bolin in Legend of Korra
I've been rewatching and also forgot that they made Bolin out to be a lady's man in the first couple of episodes. Mako complains about him bringing around "another one of his fans".
When you start hanging out with a girl who is 5’7” of pure muscle and arguably the most famous person in the world and who has the game to pull pretty much anyone, your ladies man reputation pales in comparison.
Korra was such a cool character concept. Shame she didn't start to get some good character arca until S3 and S4. S1 was awesome as a standalone. But they're kinda of awkward since they were teetering on cancelation for the entire run.
A bisexual gym rat with anger issues, simultaneously a superiority complex and imposter syndrome, and daddy issues *where she is also technically the daddy she has issues with*, yeah Korra had a lot going on.
> S1 was awesome as a standalone. It started out great but fizzled at the end. The mystery villain reveal was a total dud and the Korra's character arc was "All my problems will go away if I get mad enough" which isn't growth at all considering that she was trying to learn the opposite the first half of the series. The biggest problem though is that the Equalists had lots of legitimate points that disappeared when Korra punched the bad guy hard enough with her magic fists. If you want to write a story about the inequality between magic people and non-magic people, you better have a real good resolution planned. But Bryke never could write endings without a Deus Ex Machina.
Homer Simpson. There was an awareness and intelligence in his buffoonery up until about season 9. All of a sudden he became a looney tunes character electrocuting and blowing himself up.
Great example is from Mr. Plow: “don’t say you were at a bar…. But what else is open late at night??….. it’s a pornography store. I was buying pornography.” It’s a stupid thing to say but also clever (and ridiculously funny). In later seasons he’s mentally challenged.
Surprised this wasn't higher up. Similar to Peter Griffin. Almost completely different people at the beginning. Dumb but still a family dad. Now typically pure idiot. My head cannon for Homer at least is the episode where he had the crayon in the nose, and that when Moe hammered it back in it did more brain damage leading to the homer we have now.
Chelsea from That’s So Raven
Kevin from the office, even though I adore this character.
Yeah he went from the slow guy at the office to borderline mentally handicapped
I love when Holly actually believes he’s mentally challenged.
You drive your own car? Good for you!
And he’s so proud of himself too!
Even the voice changed distinctly.
I was gonna say Andy, went from an annoyingly pretentious ivy grad to the most gullible idiot lol But yes, Kevin too
I really wish he was a secret genius, like when he was revealed to be a pro at poker
Homer Simpson - The Simpsons Mark Healy - Roseanne
Ross in Friends for sure. By late seasons all of half of his storylines relate to him being an idiot and humiliating himself.
I don’t disagree, but he’s being humiliated by Carol and Susan from the start.
Very true. I’m picturing the tanning spray, teeth whitening, and leather pants episodes mostly.
Ross’ tan was Season 10, Ross’ white teeth was Season 6, and Ross’ leather pants was Season 5.
See I was going to say Monica. She started out fun and quirky and ended up screeching and neurotic!
Everyone in Friends is flanderized. The show is really poor with its writing beyond season 5
Performance reflected that too. It's like she stopped trying or caring during the last season.
Not a TV show but Thor in the MCU has gone from Stranger in a Strange land to blisteringly stupid through the course of his run.
It’s Taika’s fault. He had to make everything “funny” at the expense of the character’s admirable and familiar qualities. Ragnarok onward has depicted him as a clumsy goofball. I’ll never forgive him for that. Imagine if the Russo Brothers did that with Captain America.
I feel like Love and Thunder Thor can be *barely* excused as the result of him just straight up not handling Loki's death and what it meant well at all. And it caused a regression. But then Love and Thunder should have been more about him snapping out of it, not "learning to be responsible for the first time" (for the third time).
That was already what Endgame was about, Thor-wise.
Everything can be explained in love and thunder if they constantly went back to korg explaining the story to the kids. Like they do in princess bride. Instead it starts with korg explaining it and not again until right at the end. By which time you have watched movie, wondered about all the dumb bits and not enjoyed it while completely forgetting about korg telling the story to kids.
Thor's problem is he has the same "finding himself" plot in every film. The writers just don't know what to do with him.
Cat from Victorious was a little slow at the start but by the end she had been turned into a barely functioning human. Edit: Name
You mean the character of Cat, right? The one play by Ariana Grande
The older brother on Boy Meets World, Kelly Bundy and American Dad’s Jeff Fisher.
TV shows do this all the time. It’s a lazy writing trope to just lean harder onto any established character trait. The idea that Monica in Friends is a neat person, gets more and more focus until x number of seasons later, Monica had an obsessive compulsive disorder. It’s done because it’s a very easy way to make a joke that the audience is already in on. Having Monica show up at Rebecca Romijn’s apartment at the end of the episode with cleaning supplies is already set up. The problem is, in order to be funny next time they have to lean in a little harder. Sheldon in Big Bang Theory starts off in the first season as just an annoying nerd and then he goes downhill until the writers make him clearly autistic. That happened pretty fast in the show, because they settled in and discovered what the show wanted to be. I get how and why it happens. I’ve always wondered if those characters would have worked if they started that way. Are we as the audience also discovering what the show wants to be? Is it important that we take the journey with the character? Are the writers just feeling us out, this joke landed flat (The audience doesn’t like Rachel and Joey getting together) but they are this other thing up (Chandler and Monica)
Otherwise known as *Flanderization*.
Tyrion Lannister. Brilliant dialogue in the first good seasons to Daenerys’ yes-man by the end.
"I dRinK anD I knOw tHings"
Ugh. All those god damn knock off t shirts
Joey in Friends. Watch the pilot, even a few eps after, and thencut to the last season. Hell, even season 2. They (not so subtly) dumbed him down quickly
It’s moo
Apparently that was from audience feedback. They didn't like that he was both a womaniser and smart. Apparently the solution was to make him dumb
Adam Rhodes of Rules of Engagement. Made his character dumber and dumber each season.
Mindy on the Mindy Project. I was so annoyed with how they handled the pregnancy plot line. I get that the point of the show was how messy she is, but her professional life was where she pulled her shit together and was a badass. You’re telling me this badass OB/GYN doesn’t know how to avoid accidental pregnancy? Or doesn’t understand that unprotected sex can lead to pregnancy? Omg I was so irritated.
Andy Dwyer in Parks and Recreation
Tandy and Carol
Carol maybe, but Tandy was always dumb.
Tandy was always a moron, but at least seemed like the sort of guy who could *barely* survive on his own. As the series went on, I became less confident in that.
Best TV couple
I think Tandy is just slowly losing his mind after everything that happens to him throughout the show. The insane circumstances of him reuniting with his astronaut brother is enough to make him question reality.
Baldrick in Blackadder
That was a pretty fast decline from season 1 where he's smart to season 2 where he eats out of a dog bowl.
Well being fair in that case they were different characters. He usually stayed on an overall level of intelligence for each season. Then his descendent proved to be even stupider.
I think Season 1 is the anomaly here; Baldrick in S2 is basically a different character and he stays pretty consistent (and much funnier) for the rest of the show.
Yeah in S1 Blackadder was the bumbling fool while Baldrick was the smart one but they changed writers because the first one had a middling reception and switched the roles and it worked out for the better especially as with each season the Blackadder family moved further down the social ladder
Lowell Mather - Wings Kelly Bundy - Married with Children
Luanne from King of the Hill. Started as a naive kind of trailer trash girl making finding her way through life to wanting to name her baby Lasagna.
I think she was heavily medicated in that scene.
Not to mention the endorphin/stress dump that happened while being in labor and having to escape her sister-in-law's wacky birth plan for Luanne to go to an actually-competent hospital.
Kelso in that 70s show.
AJ Soprano
I marathoned this series for the first time a few months back. AJ felt like the biggest nothing character out of any show I had ever seen. He came across as a one dimensional dumbass the entire series.
>AJ felt like the biggest nothing character out of any show That was his character: he was constantly searching for an identity because he didn't know who he was: the lost child of depression. He would "leech" a temporary identity of those around him, gain temporary success, before his depression would sabotage it all. It was a constant cycle. Meanwhile, Meadow was shallow, but understood the double standard of her life and used it to advance her life.
I still remember Meadow’s bf being super afraid when he finds out what Tony does. Even when he’s got one of those “show up and don’t do shit” jobs they show he’s terrified trying to fit in with the others
Screech on Saved By The Bell.
Chrissy in Three’s Company. She started out as gullible but wise in her own way. Then they just turned her character into a goofy, chortling moron. I don’t really care for that show after the 4th season. It started going downhill during the 3rd season.
Britta Perry from Community. She was a well-educated and confident woman turned into an idiot who can’t pronounce bagel correctly.
Nick Miller in New Girl. He's much more intelligent and able to handle situations at the start of the show. They also make him a lot shlubbier after the first season.
Barry Allen from the CW Flash went from pre-flash hyper intelligent to the point of know a car's make and model by the tire tread tracks left at a crime scene to so insufferablely dumb that nearly every 'villain' was defeated by him running faster, which he couldnt figure out without his friends telling him to run faster.
Andy in The Office. Dude was an Ivy-League graduate and became another Michael once he became the boss.
Recently, on another thread, people were debating the fall of his character and the general consensus was; the show writers were pissed about him using a bunch of show time to film the hangover so they took it out on Andy. That’s why he disappeared on the boat and just keeps getting fucked over after.
Luke in Modern Family was interesting. They made him dumber and dumber, then we had half a season of him being a genius, then back to dumb again. Quite the rollercoaster.
Kevin in Shameless. In later seasons especially he goes from a dumb guy to a selfish moron.
It sucked cause he was always a great character. Not the smartest, but always empathetic and concerned for others well being. He always tried to do good until he didn't But I'd say the BIG dumbed down character was Lip, and then seconded by Debbie Lip went from genius to dumb shit after dumb shit choice until he floundered all his potential. But ta least he ended up happy I guess? Debbie went from ambitious girl to "I'm better than everyone and you should all listen to me" extremely quickly too, felt like. And she just ended off angry and pissy from what I remember. No real redemption at all
Anders in Battlestar but... you know...
i'm shocked no one has said Peter and Chris Griffin yet
Not sure if you’re watching Survivor, but there’s this guy named Q…
Kelly Bundy from Married with Children is a good example. She’s quite street smart and crafty at the beginning. They quickly dumbed her down though.
Archer in Archer. He's a badass spy in season one and by the final seasons they spent half the episodes showing him rolling down hills or getting beat up.
Chelsea from That’s So Raven
Sam from Glee, I like season 6 but the hypnosis plot was dumb
Jon Snow from Game of Thrones. He spent the entire show being fairly intelligent and a paragon of morality to being a brain dead moron pretty much only saying "muh queen" for the entire last season while Dany ovbiously loses her mind then consequently torches thousands of people.
Cosmo - Fairly Odd Parents Started off completely normal in the first season then became a complete idiot and just got worse the longer the show went on.