The best TV shows suck you into their universe, whether it’s a hilarious comedy that makes you feel better about life or a dramatic tear-jerker that hits you in the feels. But the common thread with all of them is characters that leave an imprint.
Characters who hit rock bottom often leave the biggest and longest-lasting impact on our memories and emotions. We’ve picked 13 characters who experienced major turmoil, sending them off the rails.
Whether they struggle with drugs, alcohol, or unresolved emotional trauma, there are numerous factors that can cause a character to find themselves at their wit’s end.
Here are our favorite 13 characters who found themselves hitting bottom after going through a trying time.
Hitting rock bottom looks different for everyone. Some people end up in rehab for substance abuse or mental breakdowns.
Others make drastic life changes, quit their jobs, give up their long-term careers, or leave long-term relationships.
It’s not uncommon to see someone flame out after a serious life event damages their psyche or after they’ve had the last straw pulled in a series of problems.
These are 13 characters who hit rock bottom, how it happened, and what they did with their lives after everything fell apart.
After you read our selections, be sure to take a few moments to tell us the details of your favorite screwed-up character. There are plenty of them!
Fiona Gallagher – Shameless
Being the eldest sibling in a large family can strain the relationship dynamics during normal situations. When you find yourself barely an adult and responsible for numerous underage siblings, it’s no surprise that you grow up fast.
No one felt that strain more than Shameless favorites Fiona Gallagher (Emmy Rossum) and her younger brother, Philip (Jeremy Allen White), who we affectionately call ‘Lip.’ Having two failed parents is usually enough to split kids up into different homes.
But Fiona played the heroine in her own story, coming to the rescue of the Galagher children as legal custodians when their parents failed to be proper providers.
Instead of getting to enjoy her youth, Fiona found herself busting ass and hustling to make ends meet. It’s no surprise that we often saw her trying to cut loose with alcohol, rushing into intimate relationships, a fear of commitment, and, occasionally, drug use.
After one time of giving in and doing cocaine, Fiona found herself in legal trouble and at risk of losing all of her younger siblings when the baby ended up overdosing on cocaine that Fiona was doing.
That defining moment of realizing how similar she was to her parents’ irresponsibility was enough to kick Fiona’s get-right into high gear.
She stayed sober, bought an apartment building, and moved into her own place. She eventually chose to live her own life and leave behind the responsibilities of raising her siblings.
D’arcy Bloom – Resident Alien
D’arcy Bloom (Alice Wetterlund) is your typical basketcase with repressed trauma she treats with booze, drugs, and promiscuity.
On Resident Alien, she leans too heavily on her best friend, Asta Twelvetrees (Sara Tomko), and she often crosses that thin line of obsession.
When Asta starts spending more time with Harry and keeping his alien secret, D’arcy’s downward spiral begins.
Her rock bottom happens when she decides to show how much she loves her best friend by taking Harry’s place as the one who places the weapon to stop the end of Earth.
She becomes even more heroic when she rescues the baby Ben and Kate don’t know is real. Her redemption arc will be exciting when RA returns for Season 4.
Kevin Pearson – This is Us
Justin Hartley is currently stealing hearts as the elusive, closed-off tracker, Colter Shaw on Tracker. But before that and post-Green Arrow in Smallville, he played the troubled actor Kevin Pearson on This is Us.
As a kid, he had many issues that made this momma want to make some major attitude adjustments. Bravo to Mandy Moore for her patience.
Those narcissistic tendencies followed him into adulthood, leading to him becoming a pompous, self-centered a-hole who couldn’t manage his own life.
He held back his twin sister, Kate (Chrissy Metz), for years, leading to her developing serious weight problems and health issues.
His breakdown started when he turned 36 and had a meltdown on live TV that led him to quit his acting job as “The Manny.”
His spiral continued as he ended up addicted to pain pills after knee surgery, which led to getting a DUI in the second season. It was his rock bottom when he ended up driving drunk with his niece in the back seat.
He got sober for a while, but like most addicts, he relapses during times of stress. His drinking also impacted Kate’s high-risk pregnancy.
She required an ambulance to get her to the hospital during pre-term labor because he was too drunk to drive. His drinking led to several failed relationships.
Danny Perez – The Good Doctor
Fans of The Good Doctor are still mourning after the cancellation of The Good Doctor after seven seasons.
While we said goodbye to most of the cast at the end of The good Doctor, a few of our favorites left before the last episode, the death of Asher Wolke (Noah Galvin) was possibly one of the most traumatizing scenes of the season among all shortened seasons.
But before Asher died, we said goodbye to another of our favorite doctors. Danny Perez (Brandon Larracuente) was the show’s redemption arc, following the trope of a doctor struggling with addiction.
He arrived in the sixth season as a first-year surgical resident in recovery from an opioid addiction. We learned about his addiction when he and Dr. Jordan Allen fell in love.
His rock bottom happened with a heroin drug overdose that led to the loss of his job. Allen saved his life by discovering him in time, but it strained their relationship.
He spent time in rehab before earning his job back on probation. His character left the show after he was in a serious accident, and Jordan treated him with opioids despite his wishes, ruining his sobriety.
In the series finale, we saw him ten years in the future, and it turns out he and Jordan reunited and married. Happy endings do happen after bad things!
Hannah Asher – Chicago Med
Chicago Med is another show with the addicted doctor trope. This time, the doctor was a female and an OB/GYN.
Fans met Hannah Asher (Jessy Schram) on Chicago Med in the throes of her heroin addiction. She hid it well at first and only got discovered because Will Halstead (Nick Gehlfuss) was moonlighting at a safe injection site where she was using.
It was a scary time watching her in active addiction while treating patients. Nightmares are made of doctors mishandling medical cases while under the influence.
It’s even more terrifying that she was dealing with mothers and their babies — often before they were unborn.
After an OD causes Hannah to come into the ER and everyone learns she’s an addict, she leaves Chicago to work on her recovery. Fans were thrilled to see her return after two years of sobriety.
She maintains her sobriety and has helped Sean Archer make amends with his addict son, which has helped keep him clean and sober.
David Rossi – Criminal Minds
Not all situations where someone hits rock bottom occur due to drug use. David Rossi (Joe Mantegna) is a brilliant yet tortured FBI agent on Criminal Minds.
But when you work on the cases he does, and you deal with the awful people he does, it’s expected that you have some mental trauma.
Rossi has been through a lot of stuff, from multiple divorces to losing the love of his wife shortly after remarrying her the second time.
Getting held hostage and nearly dying at the hands of a psychopath, Elias Voit (Zach Gilford), was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
And as if that isn’t enough to make any man a bit messed up, Voight is helping the FBI, particularly the BAU, by taking down an elusive killing organization.
We really saw Rossi break mentally in Criminal Minds: Evolution Season 2 Episode 6 when the voices in his head turned into full-blown hallucinations. The entire season has put major emphasis on David’s PTSD.
It’s only going to get better when he addresses the issues. He’s made small steps, but we don’t know if he’ll recover fully.
Or if the strain of the BAU is too much after all these years, and he’s done like his predecessors Hodges and Gideon. Both former BAU agents experienced their own mental torments and mental struggles.
Gregory House – House
Gregory House (Hugh Laurie) is the doctor who started the trope of addiction. Sure, he had a bum leg, and that made it easy to score legally obtained pain pills.
This was the pre-opioid epidemic when doctors didn’t have such tight restrictions on how they prescribed powerfully addictive narcotics.
But even for the times, it seemed outrageously easy for House to score pills. Despite his brilliance, House had the worst bedside manner, making zero effort to comfort or educate his patients.
Under the guise of research and treatment for his chronic leg pain, House engaged in various self-destructive experiments, allowing himself to be a guinea pig as a form of self-punishment.
Due to his drug use and disregard for personal safety, House experienced cardiac arrest, overdoses, and frequent hallucinations.
Throughout the eight years the show was on the air, he had multiple rock-bottom moments, including going to prison at the end of Season 7.
In House Season 8, we saw him fake his own death to avoid going back to prison so he could spend time with his best friend, who was dying.
It was a total mess and over-the-top, troped-out narcissistic brilliance that would never happen in the real world. Making it great to get lost in the disbelieving scenarios.
Josephine Petrovitch – Chicago PD
If you’re up to date on Chicago PD, you know all about the crazy changes that have taken place recently.
Burgess is dealing with PTSD after getting shot. Halstead (Jesse Lee Soffer) left in Season 9, leaving behind a heartbroken Hailey (Tracy Spiridakos), who also left in the Chicago PD Season 12 finale.
Upton experienced some emotional trauma of her own as she had to keep Voight’s secret, cover a murder, and deal with the abrupt departure from her romantic partner without answers.
She punished herself through exercise, an addictive behavior profiled by the newest member to assist the CPD, Jo Petrovic (Bojana Novakovic).
Petrovic occupied more episodes as a behavioral analyst than some of our regular series characters, and the fans did not react warmly to her. She was offputting from the start, giving us the typical cop we love to hate.
Despite being good at her job, she had a problem with alcohol, a secret that was easy to spot from the start if you’ve lived the experience. Despite taking an oath to protect the city of Chicago, she often put them at risk by drinking and driving.
Her rock bottom happened when she crashed her car into a brick wall while drunk out of her mind and trying to respond to a case.
If Upton hadn’t found her at the scene and done some nasty coverup work, we have no doubt it would have been the end of Petrovic’s career. Even after Upton blackmailed Petrovic into rehab, she didn’t take treatment seriously.
Coming face to face with her destructive behaviors made Upton evaluate her life and see the similarities before she hit rock bottom, too. Although her departure from CPD might count as a life crisis to some.
JJ Deveraux – Days of Our Lives
JJ Deveraux (Casey Moss) arrived in Salem in 2013 as an angry kid who felt abandoned after getting shipped off to boarding school following his father’s death.
He started exhibiting destructive tendencies as a way to express his pain, often turning to alcohol and weed to cope.
Once his mom moved on with a new boyfriend, Dr. Daniel Jonas, he focused his anger on the intruder. His aggressive mannerisms continued to worsen despite interventions from those around him, landing him in jail for breaking a store window with a chair during an outburst.
He spent the night in the slammer because his mom wouldn’t bail him out. Things worsened a few weeks later when he started hanging out with Theresa Donovan as an act of rebellion against his mother.
When Theresa OD’ed on drugs, JJ had to rely on his mom’s boyfriend to save her life and keep himself out of trouble. In exchange for helping Theresa and keeping it a secret, Daniel requires JJ to get sober and stay out of trouble.
Sometimes, as seen here on Days of Our Lives, it takes someone who cares enough not to give an addict their way to make an actual impact.
Danny Cho and Amy Lau – Beef
In Beef, Danny (Steven Yeun) and Amy (Ali Wong) share a feud that unravels their lives and destroys relationships.
The two enemies meet through an unfortunate road rage incident, which sets a series of petty revenge attempts in motion as each person tries to get over the other.
Amy is a successful, self-made entrepreneur who is living her best life. Danny is less satisfied, going around with a massive chip on his shoulder.
Once his anger gets set on his opponent, neither becomes willing to call a truce that would end the absurd beef.
In the end, the pair reach rock bottom when they destroy themselves and each other’s lives.
Although darkly entertaining, the scenarios that led to their lowest points were immature and outrageous. But at least they hit rock bottom together as they discovered their true selves.
Jubal Valentine – FBI
FBI fans have loved Jubal Valentine (Jeremy Sisto) from the start, despite or maybe because of his various traumas.
We’ve seen several storylines revolving around Jubal’s personal life, from his struggles with alcoholism to having a chronically ill son.
The traumas are mostly ignored, only randomly popping back into play when they need some extra character drama.
Jubal’s rock bottom was especially hard to watch because he seemed like he had full control of his addiction enough not to relapse.
He threw away ten years of sobriety when he caved in from the stress of worrying about his son’s illness. Once he relapsed into drinking again, he started to do it on the job.
It’s another case of powerful government officials misusing their power position while under the influence. Luckily for fans, those around Jubal noticed his slip before any real damage could be done.
As a professional alcoholic, Jubal was able to reign in his addiction without having to go to rehab. He reached out to his sponsor, looped in his intimate circle, and returned to his AA support group.
Edmundo “Eddie” Diaz – 9-1-1
Throughout Eddie’s time on 9-1-1, he’s been the responsible single father to his son, Christopher. Before firefighting, Eddie (Ryan Guzman) served in the Army and came home as a decorated veteran.
Post-service, Eddie battles complicated feelings about his time in the military and what he experienced while deployed.
To say he has a touch of PTSD is an understatement. Despite that, he’s fantastic at his new career of firefighting. However, he resigned from being a firefighter during his rock bottom period.
After receiving devastating news about his former Army comrades, he, in an act of frustration, hits everything in his room with a baseball bat.
Having a strong best friend like Buck to talk through helped ease some of his guilt and trauma. And he enrolled in therapy to get rid of his demons and find inner peace.
Although he’s been on the mend, his recent actions with his dead wife’s doppelganger look-alike have led to destroying his new relationship.
It also caused problems with his son, who moved in with his grandparents in the 9-1-1 Season 7 Episode 10 finale.
Annalise Keating – How to Get Away with Murder
Annalise Keating (Viola Davis) is a powerful and badass criminal defense attorney and law professor with an enthusiastic group of law students willing to do anything to be just like her.
Things first start to go wrong when a group of four students become intertwined in a murder coverup.
Although the FBI and DA couldn’t prove it at the time, they suspect Annalise in several crimes, including the death of her husband, Sam Keating.
By the sixth season, Annalise has fallen far from her powerful perch, overindulging in alcohol and drugs after learning of the death of Emmett.
Her rock bottom occurred when she woke up in the hospital after her bender. After admitting she has a problem stemming from her recent life choices, she ends up in rehab.
Which Character Breakdown is Your Top Pick?
While we’ve picked 13 of our most memorable characters who hit rock bottom, there are plenty of people we didn’t get to feature. We’re excited to hear who you’d add to the list. What TV character had your most memorable breakdown?
Give us your thoughts in the comments, and be sure to follow TV Fanatic to keep up with our awesome news, editorials, and reviews.
