43.
Mickey McGuire/Mickey Milkovich
Shameless
Actors
Ciaran Griffiths (UK), Noel Fisher (US)
2007-2012 (UK); 2011-present (US)
Previous Rank
N/A
Are you the sort of guy who’s always been attracted to, shall we say, “bad boys?” Do we have a prize-winner for you. Mickey Milkovich, the budding psychopath of Showtime’s Shameless, is what one might politely call “a piece of work.” (Ciaran Griffiths originated the role, called Mickey Maguire, in the British version of the series.) A sneering, violent criminal from a family even more dysfunctional and warped than the Gallaghers, Mickey originally was just a guy who regularly stole food from Kash, the local grocer, with whom teenage Ian Gallagher was having an affair. When Ian went to Mickey’s house to confront him, however, their simmering passions exploded into sex, and eventually something dangerously close to love.
It’s always problematic to romanticize pathology or brutality (see also: Karofsky & Kurt from Glee or Beecher & Keller from Oz), but Noel Fisher’s scorching sexuality made Mickey always understandable, if not likable. (He beats up the guy Ian is doing under the bleachers, only to readily drop trou and assume the position for Ian to continue.) The dysfunctionality continued as Mickey’s father caught Ian and Mickey together, and made Mickey have sex with a prostitute while Ian watched; Mickey even had a quickie with Ian a scant hour before getting married. But the most stomach-punching moment may have been at the climax of season 3, when Ian, broken-hearted, enlists in the military and leaves Mickey behind, and the audience realizes from Mickey’s shell-shocked expression that it wasn’t that Mickey didn’t love Ian enough; it’s that he loves Ian way more than even he may have realized. \
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