The Most Important TV Characters of 2016 (So Far)

Spoiler warning for, well, everything on TV in 2016 (so far) past this point.
In the age of Peak TV, it's hard for anything, let alone a person, to stand out. But best TV characters do because they always have something to say -- and leave maximum impact, no matter the screen time. We had plenty of those in the first six months of 2016: from a pint-sized badass to a vessel for a real-life movement, here are the 10 TV characters who have mattered in 2016 so far.

10. Lyanna Mormont, Game of Thrones

Game of Thrones' breakout character for 2016? Pint sized monarch Lyanna Mormont (Bella Ramsey), who shut down haters left and right with a simple gesture of her hand. Easily the most meme-able character of the year, Lyanna was also key in getting Jon Snow (Kit Harington) elected King in the North. Without her? This whole show would fall apart. But she was also an encapsulation of everything Thrones was trying to say in Season 6: down with the patriarchy, and up with the matriarchy. Bring it on. -- Alexander Zalben

9. Christine Baskets, Baskets

Baskets walks a dangerously fine line between bleak dysfunctional family drama and goofy broad comedy. Nowhere is that line more deftly danced than in Louie Anderson's performance as Christine Baskets, the mother of Zach Galifianakis' twin brothers Chip and Dale Baskets. There's nothing campy in Anderson's lived-in, soulful portrayal of a middle-aged woman in crisis. It's subtle, a word perhaps never associated with a man in drag before this show. -- Liam Mathews

8. Rachel Goldberg and Quinn King, UnREAL

While chiseling away the artifice of TV-engineered romances, UnREAL has also lasered in on an oft-ignored bond: the complexities of female friendship. Morally ambiguous and dysfunctionally codependent, Rachel (Shiri Appleby) and Quinn (Constance Zimmer) are atypically unlikable in a world that unfairly likes its women to be likable. They're cutthroat, intense and pretty terrible to each other -- but they also need one another in a patriarchal workplace and society. It's a wonderfully toxic relationship on TV that until now has only seen male leads play these dark, nuanced shades. But only Rachel and Quinn can match and surpass each other in naked ambition, intelligence and ruthlessness. Or, to put it another way, bitches get stuff done. -- Joyce Eng

7. Kim Chi, RuPaul's Drag Race

Even in the anything-goes world of drag -- where gay men bring their A-game in impersonating fierce women -- issues of race and ethnicity can be tricky sticky points. That's why Kim Chi upended the game and became a champion in Season 8. Just like in the mainstream culture, Asians can find themselves stigmatized, ostracized and made the butt of jokes in gay culture too, which is why the 28-year-old first-generation Korean's embrace of her weight and her roots made an important statement. Rather than employ old tropes, she embraced K-pop, modernized traditional Korean garb and worked her lisp rather than doing the broken, cartoonish talk people have lampooned Asians with for ages. She might not have won the competition, but she was still victorious. -- Malcolm Venable

6. Sansa Stark, Game of Thrones

OK, so Lyanna might have been more fun to watch, but Sansa Stark's (Sophie Turner) journey in Season 6 was a crucial one. Where the show suffered criticism for handling her assault last season, this year the show creators firmly followed up on both her suffering, and her revenge. Sansa's self-assurance and strength has been a long time coming -- we're far from the whiny girl who demanded lemon cakes in Season 1 -- but it reached its fruition, and it was glorious to watch. -- AZ

5. Trish Collins, Recovery Road

Recovery Road demonstrates that addiction can affect people of all ages and creeds on a weekly basis, but Trish's (Kyla Pratt) arc took a deeper look at how addiction affects people with mental illness. It's still unclear whether Trish developed her schizophrenic-type delusions of having a daughter before her drug addiction or if it is a side effect of her Crystal Meth addiction, but the ambiguity helped highlight how rehabs and recovery centers don't have the proper resources to diagnose let alone treat mentally ill patients. Trish's struggles speak for the millions of mentally ill patients struggling with addiction and can't find the voice to speak out for what they need. -- Megan Vick

4. Taylor Blaine, American Crime

American Crime's Taylor Blaine (Connor Jessup) opened our eyes to so much after he comes forward to say he'd been sexually abused at a party by another teenager. For starters, the confusion, denial and dismissal he experienced from adults showed the ignorance and cultural stigmas about male rape. And when he's forced to admit to his mother and girlfriend that he'd initiated the sex and is outed, Taylor humanizes the shame and bullying that LGBT youth face -- and personifies the importance of including the Q (questioning) in the acronym too. As he's done in by his own terrible act at the end, we see that his ruined life was caused by factors he couldn't control but we at home have the power to change. -- Malcolm Venable

3. Rebecca Bunch, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

Through the singing and dancing of Rebecca Bunch (Rachel Bloom), The CW's Crazy Ex-Girlfriend has opened up a dialogue about anxiety and mental illness, highlighted the importance of female friendships, and skewered pop culture's unhealthy obsession with the unattainable fantasy that is fairy-tale romance. And although Rebecca eventually fell victim to her own fantasy of a life with Josh and admitted she moved across the country for him, her initial decision in the pilot to choose the possibility of real happiness over perceived success remains a triumph. -- Kaitlin Thomas

2. Marcia Clark, The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story

Yes, Marcia Clark technically isn't a "character," but Sarah Paulson's masterful turn as the lead prosecutor in O.J. Simpson's murder trial brings Clark to life in ways no one would have thought possible. In Paulson's portrayal, Clark becomes a feminist icon -- a symbol of the way women are demeaned, both subtly and overtly, in the workplace and in the media, and a scathing indictment of the double standards women still face today in their personal and professional lives. -- Liz Raftery

1. Poussey Washington, Orange Is the New Black

A fan favorite for four seasons of Orange Is the New Black, Poussey's (Samira Wiley) death towards the end of Season 4 was the show's way of paying tribute to the #BlackLivesMatter movement. In the final two episodes, the character became a symbol for everything that's wrong with the criminal justice system -- from her dubious arrest to the way the prison handled her death. Poussey will be missed, but (at least in the hearts and minds of the audience) never forgotten. -- LR

Check out the rest of The Best of 2016 (So Far):

The Best TV Shows of 2016 (So Far)

The Best TV Cliffhangers of 2016 (So Far)

The Most Important TV Moments of 2016 (So Far)