July 30, 2025
WRITTEN BY: KATIE
In my opinion, British screenwriter, producer, and showrunner Jesse Armstrong has created some of the most annoyingly awful but funny and compelling characters on television.
In addition to taking the opportunity to gush about my favourite TV show(s), I’d like to look at Armstrong’s writing, common themes, and most importantly, his characterisations because he writes characters who are, at their core, fundamentally bad people that are selfish, self-centred, and always prioritising their interests above all else. However, they’re also multifaceted, which garners a lot of sympathy. Armstrong seems to take his characters seriously, which is reflected in the way they have been written and the extent to which he effectively makes the audience identify with them despite their flaws.
While Armstrong writes fantastic female characters that are complex and hilarious, I want to focus on his ability to write male friendships. Across Peep Show, Succession, and most recently, Mountainhead, Armstrong writes about, as he aptly puts it, “limited men.” Men who are obsessed with hierarchy, riddled with insecurities, and driven by jealousy and rivalry. Men who, under no circumstances, will examine their own flaws and limitations. As a result, they’re cynical, constantly engaged in conflict, and revealing in demonstrating what they will do to fit in.
PEEP SHOW (2003-2015)
Peep Show is my favourite sitcom of all time. I’ve rewatched it countless times, and I’m convinced it's getting funnier and funnier each time.
The series follows protagonists Mark (David Mitchell) and Jeremy (Robert Webb), a pair of middle-class university graduates living in Mark’s London flat. Mark is an anxious, awkward, and self-deprecating office drone climbing the corporate ladder with sporadic success. Jeremy, on the other hand, is an ex-male nurse who is aimless in life. Living rent-free in the flat, he spends his days getting high, watching TV, “making music,” and essentially waiting for Mark to get home from work.
They’re total opposites who get on each other’s nerves and constantly drag each other down, but they’re also destined to be together. They’re perfect for each other, and the show consistently frames them as a married couple. They’re the only people who can't quite accept, but can at least live with, each other’s glaring flaws and refusal to acknowledge them. Although Jeremy technically gets more girls, they both have unsuccessful romantic lives, and both are obsessed with finding “the one.” Time and time again, they both sabotage their relationships and take advantage of people, only to be left alone together once again.
Peep Show is instantly recognisable thanks to the unique point-of-view camerawork. You watch the show via Mark’s or Jeremy’s perspective, and sometimes through the eyes of other characters who are looking at them. Although we sometimes view them through the eyes of supporting characters, we only hear the pair’s inner thoughts, which interjects into scenes so we know what they are thinking in real time. All of this forces the viewer to identify with the pair’s perspectives, and it is part of the reason it's so easy to empathise with and even root for these objectively terrible people. It heightens the intensity of every interaction they have with other characters, and enhances the impact of the more cringeworthy interactions, of which there are many.
It also has the best ending of any show I’ve ever seen. The finale “Are We Going to Be Alright?” perfectly encapsulates the characters and their relationships, refusing to reward them with the happy endings that are definitely out of reach while also remaining somewhat hopeful and comforting.
Mark throws Jeremy a 40th birthday party to force him to reckon with his age, and he gives a speech to distract the guests from the fact that he and Jeremy are holding his love interest’s husband hostage in the next room. Mark awkwardly says Jeremy is “a nice man... up to a point. And I like him.” Jeremy acknowledges the pair have had “ups and downs like any couple” and they’ve “lived together for shit long, and it's been alright.” Once the party is over, the pair have sufficiently ruined their romantic relationships yet again and they find themselves in their quiet living room like any other morning. Jeremy says he would have a great sign off if he were to kill Mark; “you always loved history, Mark, and now you can be part of it… bang.” They smile at each other and nod. Mark says, “I think I’d just come at you in the night… pillow on the face,” to which Jeremy affectionately replies, “yeah, that’s you all over.” Jeremy hopefully thinks “aww, we do love each other really,” and the final line is Mark’s thought, “I simply must get rid of him” as they turn back to the television.
It’s perfect; no growth, no resolution…just two people bound together forever by how insufferable they are, and how the years they’ve spent together have moulded them into the perfect couple. It also encapsulates Peep Show’s cynical, mean-spirited humour. In a world hell bent on embracing positivity and moral perfectionism, Peep Show indulges in self-loathing, self-deprecation, contempt, and pessimism, which is comforting in its own way.
SUCCESSION (2018-2023)
The Emmy-winning Succession is one of the best dramas to grace television screens. Created and written by Armstrong, Succession, for the few who don’t know, follows the Roy family, owners of the globally successful media and entertainment conglomerate Waystar RoyCo. The show focuses on the future of the company amidst uncertainties about ownership and inheritance, as the patriarch, Logan Roy’s (Brian Cox) four children, Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Shiv (Sarah Snook), Roman (Kieran Culkin), and Connor (Alan Ruck), plan for the eventuality that one of them will take over his reign. Infighting, betrayal, disloyalty, and manipulation ensue.
Despite having unlimited resources at their fingertips, the Roy siblings are willfully ignorant, refusing to examine their negative impact on the world. Even though they each have their own set of unique insecurities and shameful quirks, they believe they are entitled to what they want and will betray anyone to get it.
Characters in Succession are very well realised, and in spite of the objectively terrible things they say and do, we as the viewer still empathise with them to an extent. This is because the writing shows us why they are the way they are not through dialogue-heavy exposition, but through their behaviours and interactions with other characters, accompanied with a heavy dose of dry humour. They come fully formed, and background isn't offered voluntarily, so we don’t get any unnatural revelations. Instead, Logan’s traumatic past seeps into every aspect of his relationships. Shiv’s desire to lead is shown through how easily she betrays her values. Kendall’s emotional fragility and desperation to impress his father peaks from behind his overconfidence. Roman’s sarcastic persona hides his sensitivity, and the family’s disdain for weakness shows through their treatment of him. The cycle continues.
Plus, conversations feel like they’re happening organically, emphasised by the fly-on-the-wall shooting style that situates the viewer in the middle of the action. Characters move around freely with the camera focusing on them, so the action on screen only quietly registers the lavish settings and backgrounds, giving a more natural feel to the scene. It also emphasises how insulated from the real world their lives are.
Similarly to Peep Show, Succession ends rather abruptly. It also gives the impression that things will continue as they have been, and although some issues have been addressed, no one gets their happy ending. Once the question of succession is answered, the show ends.
MOUNTAINHEAD (2025)
Despite the obvious thematic similarities, Mountainhead has lots in common with both Peep Show and Succession. Although it focuses on super-rich characters who are entirely disconnected from reality, much like Succession, while also sharing that series’ snappy dialogue, the male character dynamics scream Peep Show.
Armstrong’s feature debut follows tech bro billionaire friends Randall (Steve Carell), Hugo "Souper" (Jason Schwartzman), Ven (Cory Michael Smith), and Jeff (Ramy Youssef), who meet for a retreat at Souper’s new luxury mountain home. They all have their ulterior motives and desire to come out on top, so like Peep Show, the men in Mountainhead are friends insofar as it benefits them. They don’t have real conversations, but in a familiar way to Peep Show and Succession, they say things that sound good but have no meaning beyond the surface, fooling themselves but not those around them into believing the empty words. The pleasantries are over quickly, and the group begins to constantly jab at, patronise, and drag each other down.
Ven’s AI business accelerates global political unrest and violence whilst Jeff’s net worth skyrockets due to his company’s fact-checking technology. Randall backs Ven because of his misguided belief that his business will enable him to eventually defy his terminal illness and out of jealousy at his increasing wealth. Souper just wants everyone to invest in his slightly less successful venture, a well-being slash guided meditation app. Randall, Souper, and Ven unsuccessfully conspire to kill Jeff and take over his business.
There are multiple inept, almost slapstick attempts made by the trio to carry out the murder, but they consistently get Souper, who happens to be the least wealthy, to do their dirty work, revealing a lot about how they view their group dynamic. Their rationalisations and ramblings are funny, but also reveal their worryingly delusional views.
Mountainhead doesn’t paint its billionaires quite as darkly as other “eat the rich” influenced narratives might, but that’s because Armstrong understands that their sense of self-importance, arrogance, and ignorance is dangerous enough. The level to which they are out of touch with the people around them and the world at large is sinister in a way that doesn’t need them to be evil since their detachment from reality motivates them to act in ways that are self-absorbed, callous, destructive, and above all, idiotic.
The ending is pretty bleak in that, much like the real world, the billionaires don’t really face repercussions for their actions. They’re not happy, nor is there a definitive resolution, but they don’t have to admit they’re wrong or pay a price. Armstrong doesn’t really do reassuring finales.