The Lily Finnerty Award- Worst Character Comedy

Named For: Lily Finnerty played by Linsey Bartilson in Grounded For Life
Awarded To: The character you love to hate in a comedy series from
June 1, 2009 - May 31, 2010
Last Year's Winner: Toby Flenderson- The Office

Place. Character (Show) Points (My Vote)

10. Timmy (Rules of Engagement) 4 points

9. Glen Quagmire (Family Guy) 6 points

8. Curtis (Gary Unmarried) 8 points

7. Jim Halpert (The Office) 9 points (5th)

6. Nico Harris (Sonny With a Chance) 9 points (3rd)

5. Toby Flenderson (The Office) 12 points

4. Richard Lewis (Curb Your Enthusiasm) 15 points (4th)

3. Britta Perry (Community) 18 points

Runner-Up
2. Mark Brendanawicz (Parks and Recreation) 25 points (1st)

and the Poolie goes to...
1. Susie Greene (Curb Your Enthusiasm)
30 points (2nd)

Here with his thoughts on Susie Greene is Poolie voter, Jaydon...

The essence of Curb Your Enthusiasm boils down to Larry David dispatching doses of his special brand of misanthropy to everyone he meets. The show has a consummate cast of regulars that can be dichotomized as either sounding board support systems of Larry’s machinations or antagonistic victims of Larry’s ornery enmity. In the former camp are characters like Larry’s best friend and manager Jeff Green and the hilarious homesteader, Leon Black. The latter camp includes virtually everyone else on the show but most prominently Larry’s fastidious frenemy Richard Lewis; frequent victim Marty Funkhouser; and his arch nemesis, Jeff’s wife, Susie Green. Each character responds to Larry’s eccentricities in different ways. Richard is prone to neurotic befuddlement, Funkhouser is often argumentative but subdued and Susie can best be described as a raging, shrill, foul-spoken harpy.

As fans of the show, we live for the moments where Larry selfishly violates the social order to suit his zany worldview. We love to hate Susie because she’s that one person who can jolt Larry back in line. It’s fun to see Larry fearfully beholding Susie’s bilious rants with a shell-shocked look on his face. The Larry vs Susie face offs frequently end with her demanding that Larry depart from the Green household. Before she gets to that, Susie is known for catchphrases like “You four-eyed f*ck” and “F you Larry”. That second rejoinder is especially popular with most Poolie voters as a part of our disdain for Connecticut gingers.

In this past season, Susie was less involved due to the Seinfeld reunion arc. The rivals managed to butt heads several times anyway. There was the kerfuffle about Larry’s abhorrence of Susie’s pre-teen daughter’s warbling singing voice. LD requested that Sammie cease singing at a cocktail party which set Susie off a tad. It wasn’t until the next morning when Larry groggily woke up to Sammie’s singing and bellowed an emphatic STFU that Susie really got serious and delivered an equally potent GTFO to Larry. Larry’s treatment of Sammie came up again when he delayed in rescuing her from drowning by attending to the infinitely more important safety of his blackberry and its phone numbers. Susie was quick to hurl the phone into the sea, causing some sublimely awkward shenanigans for Larry with two wheelchair bound ladies at a subsequent party. Apparently you can’t replace a wheelchair Denise with a Wheelchair Wendy, even if you lose Denise’s number.

There were two other minor but memorable moments. Larry horrified Susie by exposing that he wore panties in an elaborate cover for Jeff’s adultery. He also accused her of not respecting wood.
We don’t love Susie Green, in fact, she’s the worst, but we love what she brings out in Larry.

Check out this Larry vs Susie best of video. Clashes include the aforementioned wood respect business and other issues involving Sammie’s sobriety, a decapitated doll’s head, stolen dogs, answering the phone at dinner, the refusal of house tours, a lack of gratitude over a Lyme disease diagnosis and taste in garish t-shirts.

by Jonathan Stuart