Antiheroes On FX Dramas Whose Codes Of Honor Elevate Prestige TV

As the heart of the Sons of Anarchy on the show of the same name, Jax Teller (Charlie Hunnam) is both a villain and a hero in every sense. He shifts from Vice-President of the Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club (SAMCRO) to President while simultaneously trying to do right by his children, his deceased father (founder of SAMCRO), his brothers in SAMCRO, and the love of his life, Tara Knowles (Maggie Siff). 

Throughout Sons of Anarchy, Jax does not shy away from violence when it's necessary nor does he avoid crime. Even when he's committing acts that are considered wrong, he's driven by an intrinsic desire to be good. Jax wants to bring a legitimacy to the club and is a keen businessman, but struggles to maintain a balance between the external pressures of the club and his inner pull to walk away from the life entirely. 

Going Too Far: Parenting is difficult for anyone, and co-parenting after a divorce is more difficult. Jax may arguably have had good parenting in mind when his ex-wife Wendy (Drea de Matteo) re-emerges clean, sober, and ready to rebuild her relationship with their son. That Jax's way of handling the situation is to forcibly inject Wendy, a former addict, with heroin to ensure she fails a drug test definitely does not count as solid parenting.

Lord Yoshii Toronaga (Hiroyuki Sanada) must navigate a deadly political and military landscape in Shōgun. As his rival regents maneuver to not just push him from power but arrange for his forced seppuku to remove him as a threat to the young Taikō (emperor) in waiting, Toranaga must fend off assassins, spies, and even betrayal from his own brother in hopes of avoiding a civil war. 

Toranaga ultimately proves to be a brilliant tactician, but it requires him to sacrifice several of his staunchest allies in the process.

At his lowest moment after the death of his son Yoshii Nagakado (Yuki Kura), Toranaga puts on a show of being mentally defeated and allows his closest friend and general Toda Hiromatsu (Tokuma Nishioka) to commit seppuku to protest his liege's surrender. Hiromatsu's death turns out to be one step in Toranaga's plan to reclaim power in Osaka by using political rules and etiquette to turn sentiment against his fellow regents. 

Ultimately, Toranaga ends up guiding the Japanese empire with his steady hand, but at the cost of others along the way.

Going Too Far: It's initially easier to think of Toranaga as more of a straightforward hero, but the revelation that he is, in fact, responsible for Kuroda-sama's assassination prior to the show kicking off. Having pulled the strings and manipulated Akechi Jinsai (Yutaka Takeuchi), Toranaga sets the stage for all the horrors that follow, including the death of almost Jinsai's entire family, and does so without getting even a whiff of impropriety on his reputation.

While Season Five of Fargo focuses on the story of Dot Lyon (Juno Temple) maintaining a peaceful life after escaping an abusive marriage, Ole Munch (Sam Spruell) stands out as an unnerving force of nature in the story. 

As one of the hired hands sent to kidnap Dot at the start of the season, Munch is clearly different from the other crooks with his lyrical language and cold-blooded professionalism. It turns out that Munch is no simple thug; he is a sin-eater who may just be more than 500 years old.

Munch winds up a punishing force for anyone who doubts or crosses him, driven by a moral code that is almost biblical in nature. While he pursues Dot as revenge for mutilating and escaping him at first, he also kills those who cross his path that he deems immoral or deserving, ultimately blinding Gator (Joe Keery) for killing his landlady in cold blood. In the end, Munch finds release from his centuries-long nightmare after accepting an act of generosity from Dot, showing a new side of the show's ongoing exploration of good and evil.

Going Too Far: As mentioned, Munch has no issue taking Gator's sight, and he does so gruesomely, gouging the assassin's eyes out with a hot iron. As awful as that is, however, a quiet moment of dialogue is notable too. As the truly villainous Sheriff Roy Tillman (Jon Hamm) considers letting Dot off the hook in “The Tender Trap,” Munch says simply, "When a man digs a grave, he has to fill it. Otherwise it's just a hole." 

Franklin Saint (Damson Idris), the unlikely kingpin of Snowfall, is a classic antihero, navigating the gritty streets of South Central LA with his own set of rules. Sure, he's dealing in crack cocaine and bending the law like it's elastic, but he's driven by a code that he believes, at least in his gut, is right.

Franklin's rise from a convenience store clerk to a drug lord isn't just about power or money - it's about rewriting the rules of a game that was never made for him to win. Take his dealings with Manboy (Melvin Gregg) and Skully (De'Aundre Bonds): Franklin doesn't shy away from violence when necessary, but he's always got an eye on the bigger picture. He's not just slinging drugs; he's building an empire, one brick at a time.

Throughout the series, Franklin's moral compass points in directions most wouldn't expect. When he takes down Andre Wright (Marcus Henderson) - an LAPD sergeant who's hot on his trail - Franklin isn't just silencing a threat; he's protecting his world and the people in it. It's twisted logic, sure, but in Franklin's mind, it's justified. His internal code is evident when he spares his former friend Leon from Manboy's wrath by refusing to sell him out. Even as he's sinking deeper into the drug trade, Franklin dreams of legitimacy and stability - morphing from street-level dealer to real estate mogul (well, trying to anyway). 

But every step forward seems to come with two steps back into chaos. It's this constant tension between ambition and morality that makes Franklin such a compelling antihero. He's not just surviving; he's trying to thrive in a world that's stacked against him.

Going Too Far: Franklin appears to have a soft spot for Rafiki Books, a local Compton institution run by a kind married couple. One half of that couple, Mr. Mosley (Lamont Thompson), has a bit of a surrogate father vibe for Franklin, and helps him both learn his history and investigate the death of his uncle, Jack (Willie McMiller). When he's gotten what he needs from them, however, he basically sells their shop to a real estate developer, pushing them out of the location they'd been based in for decades.