Best Gay Character, Comedy

We’ve already given you the Best Actor in a Comedy, so we're going on to honor the onscreen personas most likely to make us shoot milk out of our nose. If laughter is the best medicine, these guys are the Tamiflu of the television world.

Agent Till (Weeds)

When this dark comedy about a suburban, pot dealing mom abruptly introduced the detail that Roy Till, the DEA agent hunting her was gay, by showing him in bed with his partner and a giant bottle of lube on the nightstand, we were more than skeptical. Frankly, we were even a little pissed. Was that really necessary for what seemed a throwaway scene?

It turns out it was because the Agent Till’s relationship was going to become central to his pursuit of Nancy’s boss. And once he got too close for comfort, his partner was killed in an incredibly brutal and graphic fashion, which set off the plot for an entire season. That will teach a bunch of critics to pre-judge a storyline, right?

Unfortunately, Agent Till came to an unseemly end that left a bad taste in some folk's mouths. But the character and his storyline were still noteworthy.

Marc St. James (Ugly Betty)

The bitchy gay assistant. Yawn! Wait – they made it fresh?

We often complain that television only knows how to write a handful of gay characters. And we tend to be hypercritical when they go back to the same well over and over. Then every once in a while, Hollywood goes and surprises us. Or a gifted actor makes the character his own. Fortunately, both elements came together with the character of Marc.

He’s both the perfect accomplice and the perfect foil to his boss Wilhelmina Slater. He understands the difference between naughty, and just plain wrong. Sure, he might torment Betty about her clothes, but he never does anything really wrong to her. And while Betty is busy being the heart of her family and managing her boss Daniel, Marc manages to humanize Wilhelmina -- which means he must have superpowers.

Marshall (United States of Tara)

There was no messy coming out scene. There really was never any angst about being gay. Marshall just was. And nobody cared, in the best possible way.

While Toni Collete chewed the scenery in her amazing portrayal of Tara, Marshall took care of the family, fell in love, had his first kiss, and finally had enough. His character skipped over the same tired coming out/gay bashing storylines that most of our other young gay characters endure because he and his family knew exactly what was important in life.