Is there a worse character on TV right now than Ray Donovan matriarch Abby Donovan? No. No, there is not.
The shrill, grating wife of the titular character is the worst part of Showtime’s otherwise solid show. Abby, as played by Paula Malcomson, seems to serve no purpose other than to complain about how much she hates her husband (Liev Schreiber) and what he does for a living. Every episode, Abby is complaining about something Ray did, or something Ray is going to do, or about how much she hates L.A., etc., etc. Whenever Abby comes on the screen, you know she’s about to complain about something.
Even when Abby actually does something, she manages to screw that up too. She recently started having an affair, which is totally justifiable considering how often Ray has slept around on her. But considering her family’s income and standard of living are dependent on her husband’s business deals with the shady underworld of L.A., who would be the worst person she could have an affair with? Did you guess a police officer? Bingo!
Let’s not forget all of the other stupid stuff Abby has done over the course of the show’s two seasons. There was reaching out to Ray’s degenerate father Mickey (Jon Voight) and insisting he be part of the family, even when Ray constantly warned her that Mickey was bad news. There was telling her cop boyfriend (Brian Geraghty) that her daughter was in the car when Marvin Gaye Washington was murdered, after Ray — who cleans up situations like this for a living — explicitly told her not to say anything. She complains (shocker!) that her husband wants to have sex with her too much. There was also attacking a woman after the woman made fun of her accent.
And oh, the accent. I’m sure a Boston accent is one of the hardest ones to pull off convincingly, but man, is Abby’s bad. I don’t know if Paula Malcomson is intentionally making it harder to listen to so her character comes off as more shrill, but she deserves an Emmy if that’s the case. It is just awful.
You know a character is bad when you’re actively rooting for something terrible to befall her, and I’ve been wanting Abby to be written off the show for some time now. Actually, it’d be pretty interesting to see how Ray would react if blowback from his business dealings caused the demise of his wife, and we could get a deeper understanding of his character… Oh, who am I kidding? I just want her gone.
Abby Donovan, you are the worst. Go away.
[Editor’s Note: We’re hoping Dave’s post is the first in a recurring series from AP Party writers about the worst — or maybe our least favorite — characters on TV. We’d love to hear your candidates and suggestions in the comments or @TheAPparty.]
