Top 10: Favorite Guest Characters

So Frea and I decided to list our favorite guest characters during the show's run. There will be no pictures accompaning this post. I'm doing this on my own, without the invaluable assitance of the MBO, and she told me I didn't have to tussle with Blogger's photo embedding software. So I will not. Still, I hope you guys enjoy our list and feel free to comment on what you think we got right, what we got wrong, and what we missed.

See the list after the jump!



10) Langston Graham

Graham always rubbed me the wrong way. I mean, he recruited an obviously lonely, damaged, and confused Sarah Walker when she was really young. He never seemed to have any problem with killing Chuck at a moment’s notice. And yet, there was just something about the man that made him seem interesting. Why did he recruit Sarah? How much did he really know about what was going? And how come he and Beckman were always in the same place? He sure did like to loom.

9) Vincent

Dying hurts, did you know that? Poor Vincent had to find that out multiples times. Yeah, it was an obvious nod to The Mummy, but it worked because Vosloo played the part so well. No matter what happened to Vincent, he just kept coming. He was cool, had a great dry wit, was menacing, and got the job done (and didn’t stop trying until he did). I often lament that we haven’t seen him since Season Two. Come on, Fedak, you want to callback to something, callback to Vincent!

8) Fernando / Skip

You can’t really ask for better background characters than these two guys. I’m not sure if either of them have ever had a single line of dialogue, but their presence has definitely been noticed. Both have provided solid physical comedy over the years, and they helped give the Buy More a more lived in, rounded feel. Plus, Big Mike yelling at Fernando for picking his nose made me laugh. So there’s that.

7) The cast of White Collar (aka Bryce Larkin and Kieran Ryker)

Bryce Larkin was a tool, but at least he was an interesting tool. Bryce was like a male Carina in the sense that when he blew into town, things got crazy. You never quite knew what he was going to do next, what he was really saying, and whether or not he really had Chuck or Sarah’s best interest at heart. But he was interesting, charming, a good foil, and Bomer really sold the part.

Ryker was a dick, but Tim DeKay played him really well. To be honest, we mainly included Ryker on this list so that we could make the White Collar comment. That’s not to say Ryker wasn’t interesting or that DeKay didn’t bring a certain amount of menacing charisma to the role, because he did. By the end of Baby, I was glad Sarah had skewered him, and can you really ask for anything more than that of your bad guys?

6) Volkoff

The man had an ice cream shop on his super secret floating lair. That about says it all, doesn’t it? No? Well, how about “Oooo, tiny weapons fight!” Volkoff was pretty much certifiable. Why else would he have been obsessed with Mary Bartowski? Timothy Dalton gave probably the best acting performance for a bad guy of any of the show’s myriad bad guys over the years. He could go from likable absentminded professor to crazed Russian crime lord in the blink of an eye. That’s what made him fascinating to watch.

5) Gertrude Verbanksi

She’s so awesome even Casey can’t help but love her. Verbanski is pretty much a female John Casey. She grunts like Casey, has the same views on lady feelings, loves the thrill of missions and the spy life. She showed up on the scene in Bearded Bandit and owned the screen every time she was on it. She was a burgeoning friend for Sarah, somebody Sarah could talk to and actually seem like the relationship expert for once. She saved Team B multiple times. And maybe most importantly, she makes Casey happy, and doesn’t the Sugar Bear deserve a little happiness?

4) Roan Montgomery

A spy so awesome even Diane Beckman couldn’t resist him. If not for Roan Montgomery, who knows if Charah would have ever happened. Okay, that’s giving him too much credit, but he did teach Chuck the finer points of seduction, and he did provide vital couples counseling services to our favorite spies. Roan defined cool, and knew how to motivate Chuck like no other character really has. I often wish he could have been in more episodes. I think there would have been a lot more smooth sailing if he had.

3) Stephen Bartowski (aka Orion)

The creator of the Intersect. Stephen Bartowski was not all there. There was always a hint of neurotic craziness in the way Scott Bakula played the Bartowski patriarch. I think that’s a large reason why he came across as sympathetic and so many people connected with his character. Yeah, he was a bad dad, but you couldn’t help but feel for him as you saw what being involved in the spy world did to him. Plus, he was just plain nice. Except for when he wasn’t, and then he was just plain cool. I mean, he created the Intersect, had a Bat cave, a magical super computer wrist sleeve thingamabob, and could even leap across time. Wait, what?

2) Carina

Loki in a skirt. She’s chaos in the form of a Swedish supermodel. I swear that’s not why I like her. She’s great because she’s unpredictable, funny, brash, abrupt, indifferent, and selfish. In a lot of ways, she’s everything Sarah Walker is not. And that’s a good thing, because that contrast allows us to appreciate Sarah all the more. She allows us a view into the spy world that we could never get with Sarah. And she’s probably had a bigger impact on the fandom than any other character not in the main cast, except for maybe Bryce. Love her or hate her, you can’t deny she’s made her mark.

1) Jack Burton
Our favorite rogue. Gary Cole took a character that could have been terrible, and turned him into one of the show’s best. Yeah, he was a horrible, seriously irresponsible father, but Jack had so much affable charm, it was hard to dislike him. He meshed perfectly with the cast, like he had been there the whole time, and gave us “Shnook” and “Cop-face.” There’s a reason why his two episodes are in our list for best episodes of the series.


So let's hear it, what did you think?