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No, It's Not Like Any Other Love: Television's Five Most Wonderfully Warped Odd Couples

By Cindy Davis | Lists | March 24, 2014 |

By Cindy Davis | Lists | March 24, 2014 |


Yin and yang, peanut butter and jelly…you know the drill. We thrive on our differences, and our best relationships are the ones that alternate between antagonizing and love. Getting along all the time is boring, and constant bickering—exhausting. The perfect twist can be hard to find, but these delightfully twisted pairs could keep us watching all night long.

5. Shoshanna and Jessa, Girls

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Pairing chipper, sheltered, adorably naive (and at the outset, virginal) Shosh with her worldly, dry-humored, free love, drugged up, hippie chick cousin is one of Girls’ best moves. Their sharp contrast combined with Shosh’s admiration and drop-jawed reactions to Jessa’s antics provides endless amusement, and their complete misunderstanding of each others’ ways makes for delightful scenes any time they’re onscreen together.

4. Twelve and Clara, Doctor Who

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Though we’ve only seen a few moments of Clara Oswald and her new-faced Doctor, we’re already giddy at the thought of them together. Where Eleven and Clara were similarly minded, all chipper and quick-speak, with childlike wonder over everything they encountered, our introduction to Peter Capaldi’s Twelve quickly changed the tone. And it’s not just the age difference; there’s an immediate feeling of dark seriousness emanating from Twelve. Moffat has described the Twelfth Doctor as “trickier, madder and fiercer; less reliable” and frankly we can’t wait to see Clara adapt (or not) to the dark side.

3. Boyd and Raylan, Justified

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A career criminal antagonizing a lifetime lawman—sure, we’ve seen it before, but never like this. In Harlan county there are outlaws aplenty, most of them dumb as rocks or clever until they paint themselves into a corner (with Raylan there, slyly smiling as they fall into their own freshly-dug hole). Boyd wears a coat of a different color. Like Raylan, he thinks before he speaks. His loquaciousness perfectly offsets Raylan’s hesitation to use one more word than is absolutely necessary. With a lifetime friendship under their belts, Raylan is just as likely to need Boyd’s help as he is to be on the verge of cuffing Crowder and hauling him in, which makes for a delightfully watchable (over five seasons now), ever-changing relationship.

2. Arya and the Hound, Game of Thrones

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From the moment the Hound killed Ary’s friend Mycah, she despised Sandor Clegane…but fate keeps bringing them together. And though at times they each would’ve happily seen the other dead, there is something protective behind the Hound’s actions. Their amusing verbal exchanges have come to resemble stern father and sullen teen more than captor and hostage, and despite herself, Arya may have a developed a soft spot for her scruffy captor.

1. Hannibal and Will, Hannibal

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Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham: A Love Story? I don’t know who could have guessed Bryan Fuller’s despicable scheme, tricking us into adoring a psychopathic cannibal with a hole in his heart…one that can only be filled by the man he’s set up for his own crimes, and practically sentenced to death. Now forced to undo his own damage, Hannibal offers up other suspects to save the man for whom he’s developed a very strange appetite. The dance between Will and Hannibal—who knows what the other is up to at any given moment—makes these two master manipulators our favorites.


Cindy Davis, (Twitter)