#i can't believe i spent 25+ times not seeing him for the fucking amazing actor he is

[tenitchyfingers]

I mean, people who watched Good Girls and don't see what a great fucking job Matthew Lillard did on Dean are just pitiful. Like this character could've been the blandest, most boring and meaningless one on tv ever, and I've seen similar ones too being played, you know, that way, with no pussy put in them. And I would've hated THIS character so much had he been played by literally anyone else. But there's a humanity and a frailty coming through with this performance that just steals my heart. Yes the character is not a goddamn saint, yes he fucked up, yes he did shit that gets you angry because of how dumb he was in s1-2. But throughout it all you see so well how Dean is just a person (in fiction anyway) and how he feels the way a person would. He's not a stereotypical man, he's not a performance, he's a guy who's pretty normal and feels like just a guy, with human complexities. Stan feels the same. And I really do believe it takes breaking a character into pieces to see who they are and how they work, and I love how Dean is fundamentally a flawed person who's grown SO much since season 1, probably more than anyone else, and you see that growth through this performance. He just feels authentic. Rio, though? That guy's just such a one-dimensional Bond villain. Seriously, no depth is put in that performance, there is nothing real in it and honestly? That's why I want him dead. He's a flat character played by an actor who gave a flat performance. and hey, I'm not saying Manny is not a good actor, he just probably could not get into the mind of someone doing what he does. He's too surface-level for it, which is counter-intuitive because playing evil villains should be fun and should get you to dig deep within a character and find ways to connect to them. But Rio just feels like a pretty shell and the hotness factor wore way off back in the beginning of season 1. And I mean, I absolutely LOVE bad guys, shit most of my favorite characters ARE bad guys. My favorite performances by Lillard are the bad guys. But honestly, he's the best performer in this show along with Reno Wilson and Christina Hendricks. It's not just because I'm currently hyper-fixating on Lillard, it's because he's objectively a scene stealer even as, if not even more as, a supporting character. And that's his thing, he gets cast as a secondary character and delivers the best performances in anything he's in. I'm not going back on this.