One of the great virtues of episodic television—and long-form storytelling in general—is the opportunity for the audience to really get to know the characters. Movies, unless they’re ten-hour experimental epics or spectacle-laden trilogies, seldom if ever render characters in terms that allow for much complexity. This proves especially true with male characters, who time and again are called upon to contribute strength, humor, or dramatic adversity for the other characters, usually without explanation or real rationale. But on the small screen, across a season or two of terrific television? Everything should, can, and will be explained, whether it’s that nasty competitive edge, that comic defense mechanism, or that irresistible charm, manifested years ago when they realized that their wife/girlfriend/mother could never love them as much as they needed.

Historically, leading men on TV dramas have been cut mostly from one cloth: rugged alpha males who tackle tough issues at work but leave the feelings for their lady friends. These are guys in whose hands audiences feel safe, whether they’re saving lives, solving cases, or shooting bad guys, and who largely dominate their romantic relationships. Moreover, these men are filtered through a particularly narrow prism of moral and ethical correctness, notwithstanding the bedside manner of a few doctors from previous decades, and are regarded as leaders rather than followers.

Recent years have seen a preponderance of increasingly complicated male characters on television. Much of this evolution can be attributed to  …